A Matter of Seconds
by Nancy T
Summary: Cole and the Seer are back! Much magic and action! Midway into the story, the Charmed Ones must protect a genius innocent, Dr. Charles Eppes of CalSci. A Charmed & Numb3rs crossover: Now that's something you don't see every day!
1. Tremors

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc._

_This story takes place a couple of months after Piper has seen Cole in limbo and after Leo has become a mortal man and the head of Magic School._

A fireball tore across the Manor's front hall, deflected off of the glowing banister of the staircase, and ricocheted upward, shattering part of the chandelier over the hall table.

Even crouched behind the banister, Piper saw that and swore. She stood and opened her hands at the woman in the long red cloak, who exploded into a loose pillar of whirling ashes.

Cole pulled Piper back down beside him. "Go bring Phoebe back, you'll need the Power of Three," he said.

Piper hesitated, looking at Cole. Paige, crouched on the steps beside them, glanced downward and couldn't quite repress her look of shame.

"Go," Cole said urgently. The ashes were already beginning to congeal, assuming again the form of the cloaked woman. "Even magically reinforced, this banister won't last forever. I'll cover you."

Piper ran up the stairs as Cole popped up and threw a fireball. The woman in the robe and the fireball vanished at once, then reappeared in the sunroom door. The woman was holding the fireball in the palm of her hand, and against the night-darkened windows of the sunroom the flickering fireball was the only light, casting weird shadows upward on the woman's face.

"Where did dear Phoebe go in such a hurry?" the Seer asked, in silken tones. "Do bring her down to say hello. I haven't seen her in – "

"Bitch!" Paige yelled, and jumped up. "Fireball!"

The flamed leaped out of the Seer's hand to within a couple of inches of Paige's hand, and was hurled back again. There was a thunderous crack and the Seer flew back into the sunroom.

Paige jumped over the banister and ran for the smoking sunroom door, but Cole shimmered in, which was how he got there first.

He didn't see the Seer. He conjured a fireball as he turned. There she was, in the corner, kneeling, and in her hand was something that looked like a chunk of rock with pale yellow broken glass on top. Paige was almost to the doorway as the Seer put the crystal on the floor and jagged yellow-orange streaks of light curved into the air, defining a cage that almost filled the room and closed over Cole's head.

Paige was going so fast that she slammed into the crystal cage before she could stop. The impact slammed her back against the doorjamb, cracking the wood where her head hit, and she dropped to the floor unconscious.

The Seer stood, smiling, and from an inner pocket of her robe she pulled an athame with a very long blade that glinted gold in the light of the cage. She lifted her arm and pierced the cage with the athame's tip, and at the intersection there was a steady point of light so bright that Cole had to turn away.

"You might want to put out the fireball," the Seer said in practical tones. "It can only bounce off the walls of the cage and kill you, and you're no good to me dead."

She tipped her head back, looking up at her raised hand and the brilliant point of light, and said almost dreamily:

"Purest silver and citrine,

Let a portal now be seen – "

As she spoke she drew the point of the athame downward, and the spot of light grew to a brilliant line of supernatural brightness two feet long, three feet long – Cole grabbed the point of the athame and yelled with pain, recoiling –

"Keep the karmic scales even – "

Phoebe and Piper ran to the sunroom door. Phoebe's hair was cropped very short. She was wearing a red plaid skirt and orange striped blouse and nine protective talismans on nine separate chains around her neck. At the sight of the Seer she fell back in horror, clutching the talismans desperately. Piper tried to blow up the Seer, but the woman was protected on the other side of the cage's force field.

"Evil taken, good is given – "

Piper dropped down beside Paige, who moaned, as the Seer herself knelt, bringing the line of piercing light almost to the floor. Piper grabbed for one of the crystals. It flashed and she pulled back with a cry of pain.

"Bring the man my vision traced – "

Piper shook Paige's arm. "Paige! Call for the athame!"

"Let this other take his place!"

And the Seer touched the crystal before her with the point of the athame.

The blinding light filled the cage and there was a shuddering tremor that knocked Phoebe off her feet. The Seer lost balance too, caught herself, and stood. The cage still filled the room with an evil yellow light, but it was empty.

"Where is he?" Piper spat.

The Seer, far from seeming triumphant, was looking at the empty cage with as much bafflement as Phoebe and Piper. "How could this not – " she began.

Then the light was back, without the Seer's doing anything, a thin crack that grew to a wedge as if someone had opened a door to a day of dazzling sunshine. The light-wedge begin turning. It fell first on Piper and Paige, and even the half-conscious Paige lifted her arm to cover her eyes. It rolled across Phoebe, who laughed hysterically. Then it rolled across the Seer, and stayed.

"No," the Seer said, and the sisters saw that she was being pulled toward the doorway-like wedge of light. "No!"

She raised her arms as if to struggle but the light sucked her in. The doorway slammed with another cosmic shudder, and she was gone.

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"What the hell was that?" asked Piper.

She was sitting cross-legged in Phoebe's room, bracing herself against the wall. Phoebe was looking over the carpet for the gold earring she'd dropped, its shine the perfect offset to the sexy dark burgundy dress she was wearing on her date that night. She, too, had braced herself against the wall when the shuddering thump had shaken the house.

Piper leaped to her feet and went to the door. "Paige?" she called down the hall.

Paige, who had volunteered to get Leo's and Piper's children ready for bed, was in their room. "The boys are fine. The alphabet-block fort is not."

"Earthquake," Phoebe said.

"Of course," Piper said with resignation. "This is what happens when I take the night off. I'm going to call the club." She started for her room.

Phoebe found her earring, and a funny thought struck her. She stood in her own doorway, calling down to Piper's and Leo's room. "You think the club kids'll even notice?"

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Cole reached the top step, looking directly at Phoebe's face. "Phoebe? Are you all right?"

Piper, in her room, pulling her cell phone out of her bag, looked up at the sound of a male voice, which sounded like – but couldn't be –

A second reverberating thump went through the house just as Paige put Chris in his crib. Wyatt orbed himself into the crib, putting his protective shield up over himself and his brother, and stared up at Paige with his sober, direct eyes.

"Uh-oh. This can't be good," Paige said.

Phoebe screamed. She was embarrassed about it later, but that's what she did.

Piper and Paige ran into the hall.

"It's me!" Cole was saying in earnest desperation to Phoebe. "I know it's strange, you look different, I must have been – unconscious or something, but you know me, Phoebe. I'm the one – "

Phoebe sent him flying with a martial-arts kick. She was wearing three-inch heels. Cole reeled back into the opposite wall and doubled over, but somehow remained standing.

"What do you want?" Paige barked.

"How did you get out of limbo?" Piper demanded.

"Which one are you?" said a third voice.

They all turned to see the Seer on the landing a few steps below them.

"This is a freaking nightmare," Phoebe whispered.

The Seer raised her eyebrows and looked at her. "Phoebe! You look much better in this reality. Your fashion sense has improved – "

Cole shot a fireball at her, she deflected it, and there was only a scorch mark on the wall where a family portrait of the three sisters had been.

"You just answered my question," the Seer said to Cole.

Piper was still focused on Cole. "How did you get out of limbo?"

"Limbo?" the Seer said. "Is that where he is? That explains why I couldn't bring him into my reality. But it's all right. You can have this one. As for me – " and she vanished.

A moment's silence.

"The boys," Piper said, and ran for their room.

"Wyatt has his – " Paige began.

The Seer reappeared behind Cole and there was a slash of reflected light across his throat. He fell, making horrible strangling sounds, and the Seer finished her sentence.

" – I won't stay trapped in this dimension," she said, and vanished.

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The school nurse at Magic School was a witch with huge dark eyes and full lips. Although it hadn't yet been 8:00 at night, she'd left her rooms wearing a scarlet lace negligee and peignoir, and her mane of dark hair was tousled from sleep, or something.

She did know her craft, though. Blue candles burned on either side of Cole's bed in the infirmary. Two poultices, healing crystals, and an amulet – none of which had worked yet – were on the table next to the bed, and the witch was using a mortar and pestle to crush ingredients for yet another potion.

Cole was in desperate straits. For half an hour he'd been choking on blood, unable to speak, unable to sleep, unable to heal, unable to die. He pounded his bloody pillow with his fist and made another horrible gagging sound.

"There, there," the nurse said, and even in her husky voice she somehow managed to sound maternal. "The best thing is to lie still. No one can die in Magic School, and I'm the best there is. We'll get you fixed up."

Paige was standing with her arms folded, staring stonily at Cole's suffering. "Remind me again why we're doing this?"

"Because we need information." Piper was flipping through a book of magical medications. "If that Seer really is from another reality, why did she pop in here just to pop out again? Or is she still in this reality? If this Cole is from the same reality, why is he here? Why did she try to kill him? What did she mean, 'You can have this one'? Is she just going to pop into our dimension whenever she feels like it? Why isn't she dead in their reality? For that matter, why isn't Cole? Wait, how about this?"

That last question was to the healer, showing her a page in the book. The healer shook her head and tapped one of the poultices. "That was this one."

She daubed the contents of the mortar onto the bloody gash in Cole's throat, but the horrible choking sounds continued. The witch shook her head. "I don't understand – It's almost like – "

A door appeared in the middle of the infirmary and Phoebe stepped out of it. "Date canceled," she said. "I got another of my migraines."

"I'm sorry, Phoebe," Piper said.

"Don't be. It didn't sound especially thrilling. Leonard swears that this guy can make us ordinary folk actually care about the space-time continuum, but my feeling is, if I _wanted_ to understand those little squiggles I'd have – "

"That's it!" This was apparently not related to what Phoebe was saying; the nurse had simply snapped out of her reverie, and was heading for a glass-faced wooden cabinet.

"Nothing yet?" Phoebe said. As opposed to Paige, who never took her eyes off Cole, Phoebe kept herself angled so as to have no sight of him.

Piper shook her head. "If we hadn't brought him here, he'd have been dead twenty minutes ago. Taking any information about his own dimension with him."

"Assuming that the Seer was telling the truth about different realities," Phoebe said.

"Assuming that the Seer tells the truth about anything, which is a stretch," Paige said.

Oblivious to this, the nurse dropped down beside Cole again with a blue bottle in her hand. She pulled an eyedropper from it and let three clear drops fall on to the potion she'd already applied to his wound. Cole stiffened and made a bellowing, gurgling sound, which in a matter of seconds had become far more bellow and far less gurgle. He stopped and gasped for air, and while the sound rasped and bubbled, he was obviously breathing.

"There you go," the nurse said. "Quietly now. Keep those breaths even. Don't try to talk yet." She turned to the Charmed Ones with a smile. "She must have used an athame with a silver blade. This stuff is great for magical injuries involving silver. It works wonders on werewolves, even the ones – I mean – you know – if you _want_ to heal a werewolf, which – "

Phoebe had the feeling she was about to hear something about the nurse's personal life. "Uh, is he completely cured?" she interrupted.

The healer was happy to drop the subject. "Well, it's not a whitelighter heal. He'll need heavy bandaging for awhile, which will need to be changed. But he'll live and breathe and talk."

Piper said, "Good," then turned to Cole. "Talk."


	2. The Fist in the Foam

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc._

Leo unknowingly interrupted by walking in, still wearing his academic gown over his shirt and slacks. "The boys are asleep in the nursery, and Security has been alerted," he said. "And I think I have an idea of how you can scry for the Seer and get past any magical hiding she might be doing."

The nurse slanted a look up at him. "So organized," she murmured in her husky voice. "I don't know how the school ever got along without you."

Leo gave her an abashed smile. Piper, Leo's wife, and Paige, Leo's predecessor as the head of Magic School, both gave her a dirty look.

Phoebe shook her head, looking as though she might actually have an oncoming headache. "Then after we find her, we have to get a sample of her flesh. With that long robe she wears, that's not going to be easy. And somehow we have to live long enough after that to make the vanquishing potion with the flesh."

"Hope we get a chance to use it this time," Paige said. "She got vanquished before we could even touch her with it last time."

"How?" a voice croaked.

A little surprised, they all looked over at the bed where Cole was sitting upright. His eyes were so intense over his blood-spattered face, throat, and clothes, that he looked frighteningly like a dead man rising from the grave for vengeance, and his sepulchral voice added to the impression. "How did you vanquish her?"

The nurse tried to push him back down. "Really, you shouldn't try – "

He shook her off almost violently. "How?"

He was looking straight at Piper. "Well, actually, your demonic fetus did the trick," she said evenly. "Turns out the thing gave off too much evil energy for any woman to carry it without dying. Even the Seer."

"Hey, we helped," Paige said.

"The Seer and your Cole – were – "

A sharp bark of laughter broke from Phoebe's lips. "Oh, no, you did your wife the honor. Without telling me that the child would be pure evil, of course." She still wasn't looking at him. "The Seer magically transferred the fetus to her womb, figuring it would give her ultimate power. Luckily for me."

Cole looked at her strickenly. "We were going to have a baby?"

The tenderness and sorrow in his face and voice were so grotesquely at odds with what had happened that Phoebe looked breathless. "Yeah. Hey. Hi," Piper said. "You're not by any chance the Source of All Evil in your reality, are you?"

His gaze went to her, then across all of their faces. "Oh. No wonder you all hate me. He never got rid of the Source after the Source possessed him."

"And you did?" Phoebe actually glanced at him in astonishment, and he looked into her eyes as if she were cool water in Hell. Some things, Piper thought, apparently don't change even in alternate realities.

"Well, not me, actually. The Charmed Ones. My Charmed Ones. Weren't you ever able to figure out the spell?"

Three cries of explosive indignation, and Leo quickly muffled his grin.

"You're very good at keeping things hidden," Phoebe said icily. "In case you're not aware that we know that."

"So what happened to – him?"

"Well, we vanquished him," Piper said.

"Twice," Paige added.

"That's right. I keep forgetting that second vanquish, since technically it never happened."

"What?" Cole said, understandably.

"Cole came back from the demonic afterlife more powerful than ever," Paige recounted. "He got so powerful that he could reverse time. He decided that the best way to win Phoebe over was to reverse time and create a new reality. It was absolutely awful. We managed to vanquish him there, in the reality he created, which set time back on its original course, so, technically, the whole thing never happened, including that second vanquish. We know he's gone, though – Piper saw him in limbo. Which is good for me, since in the reality he created I was dead – Hey! Is your Paige alive?"

He looked a little startled. "Yes."

Paige looked like he had just crushed an insight she was about to have. Leo, though, stood slowly, as if he were beginning to understand something.

"Touch and go, though," Cole continued. "When the Source himself decides to go after a mortal woman with no magical power – "

"What?" "The Source himself?" "He didn't send a hit man?"

"Uh – no." Contrary to what might be expected, Cole's voice was getting stronger with use. "I guess he decided he couldn't risk it. He hit her with a high-voltage energy ball when she was on her way to Prue's funeral. If Phoebe hadn't had a premonition, and Leo hadn't been so quick on the uptake – "

"That's it," Leo said.

They all looked at him.

"I was a little worried about this when you told me about the alternate reality Cole had created," Leo said to Paige. "I even asked the Elders about it, but determining the course of possible alternate realities is a little above even them. But, you know, space and time are thought of as flexible stuff. Foam, is the way some of the theoreticians think of it now. When Cole reversed time, he put his fist into that foam. When you vanquished the creator of that reality in that reality, it removed his fist from the foam, but it still, well, churned it."

"Making new foam," said Piper.

Leo nodded. "Another reality bubbled up to fill the gap where Cole's reality had been – one more similar to ours, but with some obvious differences. The Source failed to kill Paige, and later possessed Cole. That's the same as our reality. But in their reality, Cole somehow got free of the Source's possession. So there never was a demonic fetus. So the Seer is still alive."

"And, according to the Seer, I have bad fashion sense," Phoebe said. "Maybe I should've gone to that 'Math, Space, and Time' lecture after all."

"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that my reality is just a – a branch of yours?"

No one knew what to say. Cole smiled a little. "Do you mind if I assume that your reality is just a branch of mine?"

"It doesn't matter," Piper said. "Your Seer is in our reality, and we need her out of it."

"Fine. Let me help you kill the bitch."

His tone was so violent that the women all cast an apprehensive glance at him. Leo stayed calm. "Only God knows, and I mean that literally, what happens to the space-time continuum if we vanquish your Seer in our reality," he said. "Best thing to do is to send you both back."

After a moment, Cole nodded.

Paige had begun, "But will we even – " when an elf in an academic robe materialized in the middle of the room.

"Sorry, sir," his piping voice as he addressed Leo was excited, "but you asked us to scry for a sudden upsurge in demonic activity?"

"I did."

"Intersection of Windmere and Gable. Something happening right now, of course we can't tell what without going there."

"Thanks, but that won't be necessary." The elf looked very disappointed and vanished, as the Charmed Ones sprang to their feet and Cole began more laboriously getting off his bed.

"Uh, I don't think you're going with us," Paige said. Her face was still distrustful.

"Intersection of Windmere and Gable. You gonna stop me from shimmering?"

"It's probably not even the Seer," Piper said. "Probably just some poltergeist getting his kicks."

"I'm great with poltergeists."

They wanted to hurry, so, with a sort of mutual shrug, the sisters clasped hands so that Paige could orb them. As Cole began to shimmer the nurse called, "Come back for your bandaging when you're done!"

Leo headed for the door. "I'll be in the library or the nursery if anyone needs me."

The nurse was left alone, staring down at the red-soaked pillowcase, pillow, sheets, and mattress of the infirmary bed. "Demon blood," she said. "Great. That never comes out."

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They materialized in a back alley, to guard against being seen by passers-by, but this part of town was pretty well abandoned after office hours. At one corner was a self-storage place where someone in an idling truck was punching in his code on a keypad. On the other three corners were two drab office buildings and an empty parking lot.

Phoebe gestured to the storage place with a questioning look. Cole shook his head and decidedly pointed at one of the office buildings.

"Why do you think so?" Piper asked quietly.

Cole indicated a sign out front, which listed, in dull metallic letters, the occupants of the building. "Bottom line. Bay Area Gems and Minerals."

"And you think she's there because – "

"She needs crystals. I'll explain later."

"Seems kind of beneath her," Paige said dubiously, but prepared to orb.

In fact, it was. Three demons were ransacking a large back room, leaving filing cabinets and storage drawers standing open, pawing through a chaos of boxes, cards, and display cases. They were clearly not upper-level demons; although human in form, they were greenish and wizened, with small horns growing out of their bald heads. One of them, however, clearly like to play an upper-level role, wearing a long black coat with a heavy gold-handled athame visible beneath it. He was "supervising" as his two underlings searched.

"This print's way too small," said the skinner of the underlings in a whining tone. "I can't even read what rocks these are."

"That's not the print, that's you not being able to read," said the other underling, and sniggered.

"The light in here's so lousy I can't even tell yellow from clear," said the skinny one. "Can't we just scoop up everything big enough and let her sort it out?"

"Yeah, sure," said the other underling. "Then she doesn't pay us the second installment. Then we don't have enough to buy a really good power from a power broker. Then we spend the rest of our lives doing everyone else's errands for chump change. Yeah, that's a great plan."

"Besides, she's upper-level – way upper-level. I can always tell," the one in the black coat said sagely. "If we do this right, she'll refer her friends to us. We'll be hanging out with dark priests, demonic royalty, seductresses – "

"I don't know," Paige said. "We've dealt with all those, and I've never been specially impressed."

All three demons jumped, then the other two glared unanimously at the skinny one. "You left the door open, flesh-head!"

Skinny, however, seemed to have a clue. He pointed at the three sisters and stammered, "I didn't – I think it's – I think they're – "

"Please forgive him, he's not as smart as us," said the second underling. His face and gestures animated, his hands open in an unthreatening manner, he was strolling away from the other two demons, determinedly making eye contact. "Now you're smart people, I can tell. You're just here to make a buck, like we are. Now we can probably come to some – "

It was such an obvious attempt at a diversion that when the black-coated one suddenly drew his athame and threw it at Cole Paige had snapped "Athame!" before it was halfway to its target. She received it and threw it back at its sender, who yelled as the blade struck his chest and then exploded in a splat of green slime, while they all jumped or recoiled.

In the moments that that took, the second underling transformed amazingly: bony plates jutted from his head, tusks shot from his jaws, his hands became scimitar-like claws. With a bellow he rushed at Paige. Piper blew him up, then they all leaped away again from a shower of green slime.

The skinny one, proving that after all he was the smartest of the group, simply tried to run. Piper froze his legs with a flick of her finger and he toppled to the floor, then rolled over and tried to sit up, staring helplessly at the four people who approached and stood over him.


	3. GoodCop, BadCop

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc._

Phoebe sat down on the floor next to the demon; might as well, the sexy dress already had Cole's blood and demon slime on it. "We really didn't come here looking to vanquish anyone," she cooed gently. "We just need to know some information. You can give us that, can't you?"

"I don't think – I mean – "

"He doesn't know anything, Phoebe," Cole said roughly. "Let me burn him up."

It took Phoebe only a half-breath to catch on. "Cole, you've already killed four demons this week. Isn't that enough?"

"What the point in keeping him alive? He won't help us. One quick fireball, the whole thing's over."

The demon gave a whimper, staring at Phoebe.

"Hey, you've had a long day," she said to Cole. "Why don't you go get a drink of water?"

With a snarl, Cole stalked to the sink at one corner of the room and slammed cabinet doors as if looking for a cup. Piper and Paige, knowing their cues, backed off.

"See, I'm kind of in the minority here," Phoebe told Skinny in a half-whisper. "I think you recognized me and my sisters?"

The demon's eyes were huge. "You're the – the Ch – the Char – "

"The Charmed Ones, right. And you know our track record. So if my boyfriend wants to vanquish you, they won't have a problem with it."

"I'm not – I don't – We were just picking up some crystals."

"For whom?"

The demon hesitated.

"I really can't save you if I can't convince them that you're helpful."

"It's just – she's upper-level. Gaxya said, way upper-level."

"OK, well, we're the ones who vanquished the Source. You think we can't take care of some minion of his?"

"Oh, yeah. I mean, oh no. I mean, I'm sure you can."

"All right, what have you got to worry about? You know we'll track her down anyway. This way, you do us a favor."

"And then – " the demon indicated Cole – "and then he won't –- "

"I'll see to it. So?"

The demon looked around at them all. "Well, we were layin' for this warlock, collection work, and she just suddenly appeared. Female upper-level demon, long red robe, one big earring dangling. Didn't tell us her name. Just said she needed these crystals. About so big, five of 'em called streen – "

"Citrine," Cole said, and they all glanced at him.

"Yeah, that's it. She gave Gaxya ten pieces of gold – ten, do you believe that? – and said we'd get another ten on delivery."

"Which was scheduled for – " Phoebe prompted.

"Tonight, midnight. In back of the Methodist Church on Magnolia."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not! I said, 'Hey, kinda creepy, lady!', and she smiled and said, 'It's the last place anyone will look for us.'"

"Good point," Paige said. "She knew we'd be looking."

"Did she tell you where to find the crystals?" Cole asked.

"No. That was why she hired us. She said she had a lot to do and she couldn't waste her time on stuff like finding crystals. And Gaxya said, 'Don't worry, I know exactly where to find them.'" The demon shot a sullen look at the slime marking the last stand of his leader. "Gaxya thought he knew everything."

"And – " Phoebe said.

"And nothing. That's it. I swear."

Dismissing speculation of what exactly a demon would swear on (his honor? the Bible?), Phoebe glanced up at the others. No one else had any questions, so Piper flicked her hand and Skinny jumped to his feet with a nervous look at Cole.

"You won't be telling anyone about our little conversation?" Cole's tone was threatening.

"I'm gonna tell anyone I ratted out an upper-level? No, I don't think so," and the demon began running. After a few steps his speed became supernaturally fast, and he was a blur by the time he was in the building's hallway.

Cole smiled down at Phoebe. "Nice work."

"Same to you." He extended his hands and helped her up off the floor.

"Obviously he never heard of the good-cop bad-cop routine," Piper said with a laugh.

"You have to say this, whatever we were going through personally, we always made a great team," Phoebe said to Cole. She was up off the floor and he held her hand for a moment longer than necessary before dropping it.

Paige, the only one wearing a watch, glanced at it. "OK, it's about 8:30. We've got three and a half hours to come up with a plan."

"How did you know she wanted crystals? And which crystals?" Piper asked.

"I'll tell – " He cleared his throat. "I'll tell you about that."

"But not right now," Phoebe said. "Your throat wound is bleeding again. We've got to get you back to the healer." She touched the wound gently.

"You're going to play hell with her social life," Cole said, and they laughed together, as Piper and Paige exchanged a look.

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They didn't have time or knowledge enough to undo the chaos the demons had made at Bay Area Gems and Minerals, but they did do a fast clean-up of the slime before leaving. While Cole submitted to more treatment and bandaging, the girls plunged gratefully into the shower one after the other, and Leo rooted through his closet to find a white shirt that would be appropriate under Cole's black coat (red flannel, Phoebe insisted, wouldn't look any better than Cole's own blood-soaked shirt). With an additional pause for Phoebe to brew and pour coffee and for Piper and Leo to check on the children, all five reconvened in the Manor's attic.

Phoebe leafed through the Book of Shadows, standing at the lectern. She seemed to have rethought her earlier warming toward Cole, and avoided his eyes, in spite of the fact that he was sitting on a chair directly before her. Piper and Leo sat on the couch; Paige, after an attempt to stay seated, let her restlessness rule and paced.

"She needs the crystals to make a cage," Cole said. His sip of his coffee was tentative, but it seemed to go down fine.

"A crystal cage?" Piper said indignantly. "In our reality, that was Prue's invention!"

"It was in ours too, but the Seer copied it, with her own variation. Instead of trapping evil, she traps good. That's how I got here. She suckered me into the cage, put the point of an athame into the perimeter, and drew it downward while she said a spell. As the spell finished she touched one of the crystals with the athame, and boom! I was here."

"Boom, literally," Paige said.

"Couldn't figure out what was going on, all of a sudden it's quiet and everyone's gone. I thought I must have been knocked unconscious for awhile, and ran upstairs hoping Phoebe was up there and all right."

"And I kicked you in the gut," Phoebe said ruefully.

"From what you've told me, understandably."

"OK," Piper said, "I guess I can see why the Seer would want to put one of our allies into another dimension, but why not one of us? If she throws a Charmed One into another reality, the Power of Three is gone in her reality. And why follow you here?"

"I don't think she did," Paige said. "Remember what she said right after she cut Cole's throat? 'I won't stay trapped in this dimension.' I don't think she wanted to come here. I think something backfired on her."

"Do you remember the spell she used?" Piper asked Cole.

"I think so. 'Purest silver and citrine / Let a portal now be seen / Keep the karmic balance even / Evil taken, good is given / Bring the man my vision traced / Let this other take his place.'"

"There you go." Piper nodded. "The words of her own spell came back and bit her. We've all done it."

"She was trying to make a trade?" Phoebe said.

"I think she had a vision of evil Cole – either the one from her reality, who no longer exists, or the one from our reality, who exists only in limbo. Either way, she figured she'd exchange her reality's Cole, an ally of the Charmed Ones, for 'the man my vision traced.'"

"That's why she asked him, 'Which one are you?'!" Phoebe exclaimed. "And that's why she said, 'You can have this one.'"

"Right. She said, 'Keep the karmic balance even,' I guess figuring that swapping two counterparts of the same man between two different realities is some kind of balance. But since there _is_ no evil Cole, all she wound up doing was putting a new force of good into our reality. The words of her own spell demanded balance, so a new force of evil was also pulled into our reality. Herself."

"That is – " Leo said, looking Cole in the eye – "if we assume that he's telling the truth about the spell. And if we assume that he's a force of good."

"I think we can assume that," Paige said.

Cole stared at her. "I thought you'd be the last one I could convince!"

"Well, you didn't really. Wyatt did."

"Wyatt?" Piper and Leo said in unison.

"Yeah. I was thinking about this in the shower just now. I was getting the boys ready for bed when those two tremors happened. After the first one, Wyatt's main concern was that his toy fort fell down. But after the second one, he orbed into Chris' crib and put his protective shield over both of them. He only felt the threat of evil in the house after the second tremor."

"But you don't know which one got here first," Leo said.

"Well, we know who got upstairs first. We know – " she looked at Cole – "who has flip-flopped around between good and evil, as opposed to always being totally evil. We know who interrogated a demon by doing a good cop-bad cop routine instead of just trying to torture the info out of him." Paige shrugged. "I'm willing to accept that this is a good Cole, and by the time he flip-flops we'll have him back to his own reality."

Cole smiled at Paige with wry admiration. Phoebe looked at the floor.

"Leading to the next issue: How do we get them both back?" Piper said.

"Will we even need to transport the Seer?" Paige asked. "She seems pretty determined to get back there herself."

"We can't count on what she might do," Leo said. "She may try to grab a force of good in order to take them both back to her reality, the way she and Cole both got pulled here. But she wouldn't grab a magical force of good – it's likely to be a nurse or someone like that, a mortal she can kill the moment her goal is reached."

"Besides, we can't take the risk that she might get back before me," Cole said. "I have to be back at the Manor in case she launches another attack."

"Excuse me, we did pretty well against her without you in this reality," Piper said.

Cole hesitated, glanced at Phoebe, looked away. "Yes, well. That was – this reality."

Piper looked as if she would pursue that, then decided that other matters took priority and turned to Phoebe. "Does the book say anything?"

Phoebe looked up, a little startled. "Um. Nothing relevant. It talks about alternate realities in terms of time travel and magic portals, but it's all about how to avoid them. There's nothing in here about shuttling people back and forth between them."

"I suppose we'll just have to do our own spell," Piper said, "but man! this is tricky stuff. It could backfire on us as easily as it did on the Seer, and I don't want to make things even worse."

"Hey!" Paige snapped her fingers and turned to Leo. "Professor, what's-his-name, Stone, at Magic School! He spends all his time trying to figure out how to open a window to alternate realities so you can watch them. It's not exactly the same as moving between them, but he might be some help."

"He might," Leo said. "But it would be complicated. I fired him last month."

Paige obviously wasn't surprised. "Neglecting the classroom in favor of his experiments?"

"Worse than that. He conducted a highly dangerous incantation in the classroom wing. He blew half of a student into Hell. If it had happened anywhere but Magic School – "

Paige shuddered. They all did.

"We put him back together – physically – but of course he was enormously traumatized. I had to talk with his parents for two hours before they agreed not to take him out of the school." Leo shrugged. "If it had been Wyatt or Chris, I'm not sure I'd have let them stay even then."

Piper ran her hands through her hair. "OK, another thing to focus on with the spell. No transferring _half_ of anybody anywhere."

"Stone said he was sorry, of course, but I got the feeling that the failure of the incantation bothered him more than the trauma to the student. I told him that the safety and education of the kids had to be our top priority; he told me that nothing was more important than his dimension work. I said, in that case, he should focus entirely on his dimension work, and that his teaching contract was terminated."

"Leo, you should have told me!" Piper exclaimed. "You have to remember that you're mortal now. If he comes around while you're at the Manor and attacks you – "

But both Leo and Paige were shaking their heads. "Not the type," Leo said. "And remember, I know the type."

"He doesn't think anyone else is important enough to wreak vengeance on," Paige said. "It would take him away from his experiments. Right now he's thinking that he'll open a window to an alternate reality that everyone in the magical realm can see, and then he'll go around telling everyone what an idiot Leo Wyatt was for not understanding his brilliance. He's obsessed, but I don't know if you'd really call him evil."

"But if someone evil came around and paid him for help, would he give it?" Cole asked.

After a pause, Paige nodded and Leo said, "I think so. Some of the crystals he uses are very rare, and he goes through them like water. Yes. If he saw an advancement to his work, he wouldn't care about the moral orientation of the person he was helping."

"Then we'd better find him before the Seer does," Cole said.


	4. Gold and Stone

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if they didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

"How would the Seer even knowthat Stoneexists?" Paige asked.

"How does she know anything?" Cole said impatiently. "She has visions. She casts runes. She inhales the fumes of potions. You know, magic."

"She told the demons that she had too much to do to worry about finding crystals," Piper said. "Maybe finding a sorcerer who deals in alternate realities is one of the things on her to-do list."

"All right, let's go," Paige said energetically. "Leo, do you have his address?"

"I can easily get it. But I'm not sure you should go, Paige. I don't know if he'd be receptive to anyone that closely associated with Magic School right now."

"Actually, who would he be receptive to?" Piper asked ungrammatically. "He doesn't sound like the type to respond to, 'Hi, I want to appeal to your better nature.'"

"How about, 'Hi, I'm half demon and I need to get back to my alternate reality?'" Cole asked.

There was silence while everyone's distrust of even a good Cole Turner was written on the air in fireworks.

"Sounds like a plan," Phoebe said abruptly. "I'll go with you."

"Phoebe?" It was both a question and a warning from Piper.

"What? I can be a counterbalance. If the guy is scared of Cole, I'll be his best friend; if he's hostile, I'll gush admiration."

"What if he's just greedy?" Paige asked.

"Oh, I passed a spell in the book just now that could help. Everyone give me your spare change."

Amazingly, Leo had more than any of them. Since he'd become mortal, he'd taken to walking around with money in his pocket like everyone else.

Having assembled $1.79 in coins in a small cauldron (including 47¢ from behind the sofa cushions), Phoebe lit a yellow candle and let the wax drip over the coins as she read from the book:

"Though this be no alchemy,

Gold ye may appear to be,

Not for any gain to me,

But to fool dishonesty."

And when she emptied the cauldron, a shining stream of gold Napoleons, Krugerrands, and doubloons clattered onto the table.

"Wow," Paige said.

"It only retains the appearance of gold until after we leave Stone's presence. And if we try to spend it with anyone who has good intentions, it reverts back to small change immediately."

"All right," Piper said. "While you're seeing Stone, I'll go work on the alternate reality transporting spell. Leo, you had an idea of how to scry for the Seer?"

"Yes, I'll work with Paige on that."

Paige turned to Leo and Piper headed for the door, and Cole said, "Wait! Before we split up – Have you come up with the Protective Object spell yet?"

The sisters looked baffled. Cole indicated the sofa. "Each of you, put a hand on that," he said, and after a moment's hesitation they did.

"Now repeat after me: Strength of Earth, tempered with Fire."

"Strength of – " Piper and Paige began, then glanced at Phoebe.

She swallowed, nodded. "OK." And they all repeated it. Then they all jumped as the sofa suddenly glowed.

Cole lobbed an energy ball at the sofa. The white sphere caromed off without leaving a mark and fizzled out against the ceiling.

"I used low voltage because I didn't want to do any damage in here, but it'll stand up to high-voltage energy, fireballs, bullets – damn near anything, as far as I can tell. It'll even work on objects with gaps in them – staircase railings, broken windows, one solid wall of protection. It does require the Power of Three, and it only lasts a few minutes. But you know how it is. In the middle of a demon battle, even a few seconds can be – "

" — time enough to save a life," Piper said.

Cole smiled at Paige. "Our Paige came up with that."

Paige darn near preened. Phoebe scraped the "gold" off the table and handed it to Cole. "Here you go, big spender. Leo, how about that address?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was across the bay in San Leandro, where there was a little more room to spread out – a small house with a big double garage, just well maintained enough to avoid attracting attention, somewhat isolated on a rise of land with only a berm separating it from a busy strip mall.

"Wow, this is perfect," Phoebe said, looking it over. "Any unexpected lights or noises, the neighbors will assume it was the shopping center."

"Do you suppose he created this himself?" Cole asked, as they walked up the driveway to the door. (They had tactfully not shimmered directly into the house.)

"I don't think he has the power. I think he's just a very talented sorcerer." She was raising her hand to the doorbell when a car that had been coming down the street rolled into the driveway and was turned off.

The driver got out and said, "Can I help you?"

"If you're Professor Stone, I'm hoping you can," Cole replied.

The driver hesitated a moment, closed the car door, and came up to the porch jingling his keys. He was gaunt, and his face looked overbalanced: receding hairline emphasizing an already high forehead and large eyes over a narrow mouth and little pointed chin. He looked them both over for a moment, smiling, then unlocked his door and let them in as he said, "It's not often that I get the honor of a visit by a witch and a demon both at once. Who referred you to me?"

"I have visions," Phoebe said. "One of them led us to you."

"Coffee?" Stone said, tossing his keyring and a program onto a table by the door. His living room was as messy as might be imagined, books lying open and shoes on the floor mixed with fast-food wrappers and half-full drinking glasses.

"No, thanks," Cole said, as Phoebe glanced down at the program. The cover said:

SAN FRANCISCO ACADEMIC UNION

PRESENTS

THE ANNUAL INNOVATORS LECTURE

And then, underneath a photo of a pleasant looking young man:

PROFESSOR CHARLES EPPES

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

"MATHEMATICS, SPACE, AND TIME"

"How was the lecture?" Phoebe asked.

Stone, scraping newspapers off of a chair onto the floor, snorted. "I went for the laugh. Mortals who think they understand – anything, about the nature of reality. I left at the beginning of the question period, when some geek started ranting at the speaker about how a mathematician could presume to speak to a question that is at its essence a matter for physicists."

-- Oh, God, I hope that wasn't Leonard, Phoebe thought.

Stone dropped into the cleared chair and smiled up at them without offering them a seat. "How can I help you?"

"I'm from another reality," Cole said. "A demon, one of my enemies, cut a portal and sent me here, but the spell backfired on her. I know the basics of what she did, but I'd like to get back to my own reality without a backfire. I'm hoping you can give me some ideas."

"Well, for one thing, I wouldn't 'cut' a portal. I'd use one that already exists."

"There are portals that already exist?"

"Oh, yes. They're not obvious, of course. It takes a lifetime's study to discover them, probe their exact nature. But they're around, sometimes right under people's noses." The thin-lipped grin broadened. "Sometimes right over them."

Cole took three of the gold coins out of his pocket and dropped them on a coffee table in front of Stone's chair. "Where?"

Stone only glanced at them. "Pretty measly payment for decades of work."

"I have more. How much do you want?"

"Well, I'll tell you." He looked directly at Phoebe. "Why don't you come over here and sit on my lap and stick your tongue in my ear, then I might talk."

And after a moment he roared with laughter. "If you could see the looks on your faces! Priceless!" He stood, his expression hardening. "Did you think I wouldn't recognize one of the Charmed Ones? What is your brother-in-law trying to do to me?"

"Nothing," Phoebe said calmly. "He gave us your name and address, but everything else we told you is true."

"Really. You're Mr. Alternate Reality. How about your demon enemy? Did Leo hire someone to play her too? Ooh, maybe I can get a bidding war going."

Cole looked at the floor, with a little laugh. When he looked up at Stone again, his tone was controlled and amused. If Stone had glanced at Phoebe, he'd have seen that she was watching Cole with near-terror.

"Look," Cole said. "It doesn't matter if you believe me or not. I desperately need to get back to my reality, and you know one of the major steps to putting me there. Now. Either you can let us pay you for services rendered, or we can start extracting the information in other ways. It's really up to you."

"You don't scare me. I've dealt with demons before. I wear an amulet at all times that protects me against fire."

"Really?"

Cole shot an energy ball at Stone. It blew him across the room and he collapsed on the floor, gasping in shock. "How about energy balls?"

With two quick strides, Cole grabbed the sorcerer and threw him across the room physically. He smashed into a bookcase, and a bronze bookend fell on him with a thud. Cole picked him up, slammed him into a wall, and put his hand around Stone's throat. "How about flesh-eating demons in Hell? Huh? Got an amulet for those?"

"Cole!" Phoebe screamed. "Please stop!"


	5. Torture

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of the Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. _

Cole stepped back and raised his head suddenly. Then he let Stone drop and went to Phoebe, standing behind her and putting his arms around her. "Don't think I won't be back," he told Stone, and shimmered both himself and Phoebe out of the room.

They rematerialized outdoors. Cole's arms were clenched around Phoebe, and she could feel his breath coming fast.

"All right, now I believe you're not the Source," she said.

It was the last thing he expected her to say. She pulled away from him and turned to face him.

"In hindsight, I realized that when you were the Source you were calmer, much more in control," she said. "It was when the conflict between your human and demon halves was pretty evenly matched that you would lose it. Like you did just now."

"The guy knows, Phoebe. When he was talking about existent portals, he was telling the truth. The Seer is on her way, I can practically smell her. And he'll sell the information to her because he's pissed at Leo."

"Or maybe because he resents being thrown around his living room."

The rueful expression on Cole's face admitted the truth of her statement; but then he added, "That works sometimes, you know."

Phoebe looked around. "Where are we?"

Cole indicated the berm, behind which a glow of sodium vapor light rose eerily. "Stone's back yard. We're not going anywhere. The Seer is going to track this jackass down well before midnight." Even in the dim light she could see a questioning look on his face. "If Stone just – disappeared – "

"No. Absolutely not."

"I don't mean kill him. I mean a quiet kidnapping."

"And then what? Keep him in chains at the Manor until we get rid of the Seer?"

"Well, it's a thought."

Muted light suddenly gleamed from a window at the garage end of the house. Stone had hung Venetian blinds over the windows, but the light bled around the edges and through a crevice where one slat hung crooked. They slipped over to the window. Cole bent slightly to peer through the crevice, and immediately understood why Stone parked his car in the driveway. The garage was his workshop. Just in the area visible through the crevice, Cole could see part of a whatnot covered with magical objects from a skull to feathers, part of an astrological chart on the wall, and Stone himself, moving near a table covered with cauldrons, cups, and stones.

"What's he doing?" Phoebe whispered.

"Purging crystals in sea salt."

"Oh, damn. I told Piper I'd do that last week, and forgot."

Gently, Phoebe leaned against the wall. Cole kept his gaze inside the garage.

"Tell me something," she whispered. "How do you have demonic powers? Our Cole was a mortal man when the Source possessed him."

"So was I. Something about the spell. You – they – exorcised the Source's consciousness, but somehow the powers remained. Leaving me back at square one: human form, human soul, demonic powers, demonic rage." A flicker of a smile in the light from the crevice. "Paige wasn't best pleased."

"How – "

Phoebe looked away for a moment, swallowed, took a breath, continued.

"How did they know that the Source had possessed you?"

"I told you. I guess he never did."

"No. No. You must have wanted – " Her voice was breaking and he glanced at her, but she forged ahead – "more than he did – what did we – what did I – do differently?"

Cole gave her his attention for a moment. His voice was gentle. "Well, of course, I don't know. But I doubt if you did anything differently in this reality. The Source was very strong, and my own demonic tendencies supported him. There was a part of me that wanted to be the Source. The other part just barely managed to tell you what was happening."

"When?"

He was quiet for a moment; clearly it was a difficult subject for him. "I ingested the Hollow – to save your lives and kill the Source. But when the Hollow was extracted, the Source's consciousness was left inside me."

"Same as here."

"I knew immediately what had happened. Fought it mentally. Slept badly that night, rotten nightmares."

"I remember."

"The next morning, the Seer pulled me to her. Told me this was her plan from the beginning. I could have killed her. But she started talking about a plan to vanquish my old enemy, the Source's old enemy. I was interested. Have to admit it. I rematerialized in the bathroom, knew no one else was in there. Started out the door, and almost ran into you in the hall."

(She remembered this. Her sense of unease. How can you be uneasy the day after you kill your mortal enemy? Cole had been gone when she wakened that morning. When she bumped into him in the hall after breakfast, his face was pasty, his eyes red-rimmed. "I just needed to get out of the house for awhile. You know.")

"I told you I'd just needed to get away for awhile – which was technically true – "

("No, actually, I don't know," she'd said. "Do we need to talk?")

"You asked if there was something we needed to talk about. My need to tell you welled up and the Source rose up to crush it, and I felt like I was splitting in two – "

("Phoebe, I – " And then he'd put both hands to his face, looking like he might be sick, and swore. And said he had a migraine, and bolted from the house. Oh my God, she thought, he's sick. That's why he was in the bathroom. Ingesting the Hollow was too much for his mortal body, and he doesn't want the Charmed Ones to witness his weakness -- )

"I just barely got out the words. 'The Source is still in me.' And then he took over, and I tried to laugh it off as a bad joke, but you knew it was true. And then things got – complicated. But you three came up with the right spell and the right plan, and freed me."

Phoebe turned sharply from him, her hand over her mouth.

"Phoebe?"

"That's it?" She whispered it, but it sounded somehow like a scream. "Two seconds' additional strength on your part? Two seconds? Six words? And you're – and he's – "

He looked back into the garage, giving her a moment of privacy. Then he said, still looking away, "You love him very much."

"I did. It's just masochism to keep loving someone who keeps causing you pain. Even if you understand him to the marrow of his bones." She wiped a lone tear from her face. "I just – I wish – "

His hand shot out and he seized her arm as though her words would strike someone dead. "Don't. Don't wish it."

"Why?"

Silence.

"Why? What happened?"

"A few days after the exorcism, you and – my Phoebe and Paige, were alone in the Manor. The Seer attacked, with a couple of other demons. Paige was still new to orbing – new to the craft. She was just a couple of seconds too slow, and Phoebe was taken.

"We launched an immediate search, of course. Then we started getting images. In windows, in mirrors. Not just at the Manor, everywhere. Of you being tortured. Mentally, emotionally, physically. Using magic, using psychology, using brute force." A spasm crossed Cole's face. "She used her helpers for that last. We would hear your screams. No one else could see the images or hear – it – just your sisters and Leo. And me. And then we got a ransom demand: She would give you back to us, if I gave up my human soul."

"Dear God."

"I never understood why she did that." He looked at her. "I thought it was just spite. But now, knowing what you say happened here, I wonder if our Seer had had the same plan. For me, as the Source, to sire a powerful demonic infant, which she could carry. When you got rid of the Source, she might have figured that if I gave up my soul and went totally demonic, it would be the next best thing. But in that case, you'd think that any male upper-level demon could act – "

"No. You were always unique, Cole. If she had a vision of you as the father, not just any demon would do."

"Well. We were insane, of course. Tried everything. She had you well cloaked. And we kept getting the images. After the third day I'd have done it, I'd have given the Seer anything she wanted. Piper talked me out of it. She said that when we got you back – " he smiled, a little – "She never said if. _When_ we got you back, you would need my love, all the help you could get. And if you knew that I was out there, totally demonic, probably planning to kill you all, you wouldn't be able to bear it.

"On the ninth day we finally, finally found you and raided. At the last moment it came down to a choice between recovering you or getting the Seer, and of course we chose recovering you. Leo, he was still a whitelighter then, healed the physical injuries. But you've – "

He looked down at her as if only now remembering that this was not the same woman.

"Phoebe's never been the same. She lives in her own world, seeing things we don't see. Pharmaceuticals keep her from screaming all night. But the main injuries to the psyche are magical, and we've tried everything." He shook his head. "No. Not everything. There has to be something else, and we'll find it. That's what Paige keeps saying. You – you practically wouldn't recognize our Paige. She's lived with such guilt for three years. Piper and Leo never had children, of course. Too much else to be responsible for."

A little sound jolted out of Phoebe's throat.

"There's still the Power of Three." He seemed to want to reassure her. "She'll say a spell with Piper and Paige. Sometimes they have to tell her it's a nursery rhyme, or something. Sometimes Paige has to tell her, 'I'm Prue in disguise.' She _almost_ always recognizes Piper. But I'm the only one she always knows. I don't know why. I'm the only one who can calm her for any length of time, make her feel safe."

Phoebe nodded. "When you were – when he was at his best, I never felt safer than when I was in bed with him."

"Well," he said again. "That part of the relationship – Phoebe can hardly bear to be touched, you know. I stay in the same room with her, because it helps her sleep, but in separate beds. She tries. She'll ask me to put my arms around her, but after a couple of minutes she starts shaking and I know she's seeing demons in the wall again."

His arm straight out against the door jamb, he dropped his head. "I miss you, Phoebe. God, I miss you."

After a moment, "I miss you, too."

Cole raised his head, brought his gaze back to the garage window. "I've got to get back there. There's got to be a way to make this jerk talk."

"Maybe we – Hey! Truth spell!"

"That's it! Unless he's got an amulet – Ssh."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of motion in the garage, and gave his full attention to the crevice in the Venetian blinds.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paige Matthews felt dumb. She had felt sort of dumb ransacking the chaotic storerooms of Magic School with Leo for a silver-bladed athame. She had felt dumb and grossed-out wiping the athame with Cole's bloody shirt. And she felt really dumb now scrying with the athame instead of a crystal point, dangling it over the map by a thread tied to its handle like a freaking sword of Damocles.

But what made her feel dumbest was repeating over and over, "Find the blade that drew this blood. Find the blade that drew this blood."

The stupid thing wouldn't move. She twirled it, but every time she stopped it hung from the thread as heavily as, well, a knife hanging from a thread. Leo had gone downstairs to see if he could help Piper with the intra-dimensional spell. Just say no, Piper. "Find the blade that drew this blood. Find the blade that drew this blood."

She was just considering some "Court Jester"-like variations ("Blind the dade that brew this flood!"), when the athame moved. It didn't make the crystal's usual polite mapward point, though. It swung in an arc and pointed at Paige's heart.

Apparently this wasn't personal, though. In a moment it had swung again, defying gravitational law, pointed to the opposite wall. Then it began jerking in all different directions, almost pulling the thread from her hands. She fought it like a cowgirl trying to rein in a runaway horse. "Whoa! Hey! I'm the witch here, you're the tool! You tell me what I want to know! Find the blade that drew this blood!"

It leaped up beside an attic rafter, yanking the thread from her hands completely, and hovered overhead, point down. With a squawk, Paige leaped away, and the athame plunged down fast, burying its point in the table and standing upright, piercing the map at San Leandro.

Leo stuck his head in the door. "Anything?" he asked brightly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cole's jaw was clenched as he looked through the garage window, and every line in his body spelled tension.

"The Seer?" Phoebe whispered.

"Phoebe, get on the phone, call your sisters. I'll keep Stone from talking until they orb here."

"How about I call my sisters and then we both keep Stone from talking?"

"You are not going in there with me."

"You are not going in there alone."

"What a debate," said a quiet voice behind them. "Can we join in?"

They both spun to see Piper and Paige. Phoebe grinned. "I wish you guys' timing could be a little better."

"Scrying for the Seer finally paid off," Paige said. She was holding a box with both hands, and Cole, peering into it, nodded approvingly.

"Bottom line, Stone knows something about dimensional portals," Phoebe said. "He won't tell us, but the Seer could almost certainly bribe him. So we've got to get him away from the Seer and make sure he doesn't get killed before we hit him with a truth spell."

"Then I'd better not freeze him," Piper said. "He couldn't dodge, and this is going to get lively." She pulled an athame out of the box Paige held and handed it to Phoebe. "I'll blow the door. Cole, you go in first with a fireball. Paige and I will follow with the box. Phoebe, you protect Stone. Everyone ready?"

Cole conjured a fireball, and Piper blew the door.


	6. Genius' Brain

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if the networks didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

Cole took one step and threw the fireball, but the second in which the door blew up had been enough prep time for the Seer, and she deflected it. It smashed into the whatnot, leaving only a scorch mark where the skull and a globe had been. Then the Seer saw Piper raising her hands and dodged physically, and a terrarium blew up, showering everyone with glass.

Phoebe grabbed Stone and pulled him under the table. Glass clattered on the floor around them, along with a wand, belladonna leaves, and the whole contents of a bag of sea salt.

Paige cast the contents of the box on the floor. Piper aimed for the Seer again, and this time got her. The Seer exploded in whirling ashes. Paige called "Crystals! Circle!" The Charmed Ones' quartz crystals leaped to Paige's hands and back to the floor around the whirling ashes, and by the time the ashes had reconstituted as the Seer, a cage of white light had closed over her head.

Everyone took a breath.

"Now what?" Cole said, his expression indicating that he had many ideas.

"Now we keep her neutralized until we can send you both back," Piper said.

"Professor Stone," the Seer said in her most dulcet tones, "you know I can deliver what I promised."

"Paige," Phoebe called from under the table, "come orb him – "

Stone's hand shot out from under the table, grabbed the wand, and pointed it as he shouted "_Avis_!"

One of the crystals turned into a white bird, and the cage disappeared.

Cole immediately shot an energy ball at the Seer. She deflected it back at him, and he flew across the garage. She turned and made a sweeping gesture with her arm at Paige and Piper, and they were thrown too, just missing Stone as he ran into the house.

But suddenly Phoebe was on the Seer's back, one arm around her throat, gouging at her face with the athame. The Seer screamed, her own athame magically appeared in her hand, and she slashed backward. Phoebe dropped off of her back and the Seer turned, a bloody chunk of her cheek dangling below her chin, and aimed her athame at the bleeding woman on the floor.

Then the athame exploded. "Hah! _That_ won't reconstitute," Piper said.

"Oh, gross," Paige said, extending her hand. "Flesh."

The dangling slice of cheek disappeared from the Seer's face and reappeared in Paige's hand. The Seer shot a fireball at Paige, Paige orbed out, the fireball vaporized half a rack of swords and daggers, and Piper blew up the Seer again as Paige reappeared.

"Paige!" Piper cried as the ashes whirled. "Find a fifth crystal! Cole, go get that weasel and shimmer him out of here!"

"Crystal!" Paige shouted without thinking. From cabinets, from counters, from bowls of salt, from the floor, dozens of them flung themselves at her, forcing her to duck and cover as she was pelted with a rain of rocks.

Cole charged into the house, gave a cry of pain, and fell back into the garage, an acrid smell coming with him. Piper recognized the smell; it was a potion she'd used on demons herself. In small amounts it wouldn't kill, but in large amounts – Stone came after Cole, still waving the flask of green liquid in one hand, something white in his other hand. Piper froze him, but by that time the Seer had reconstituted. She took one quick step, grabbed the frozen man, and vanished with him.

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A conga line, Paige had laughed as she made a paste of magical herbs – and then, seeing the look on Cole's face, had absented herself to scry for Stone in the attic, using his keyring looped over the crystal point. The rest of them stayed in the kitchen: Cole sat on a stool while Phoebe, sitting in front of him on a chair, applied the paste to the potion burns on his chest, arm, and shoulder, murmuring an incantation; behind her, Piper stood, applying good old-fashioned ice and pressure to the scalp wound the Seer had given Phoebe; behind Piper Leo stood, applying liniment to Piper's arms and lower back.

"There are times when I wish I were a whitelighter again," Leo said.

"Really, honey?" Piper asked. "What times would those be?"

She glanced back over her should with a wry grin, which he returned. "Anyway, at least we have a piece of the Seer's flesh for the vanquishing potion. That was great work, Pheebs."

"We can't vanquish her in this reality," Leo repeated.

"No, but I can take it back with me," Cole said. "My Charmed Ones know how to make the potion, they've just never had the chance to get her flesh. Ow."

"Sorry," Phoebe said. "And hey, maybe I feel like screwing with the space-time continuum, anyway. Ow."

"Sorry," Piper said.

"OK, that should do it," Phoebe said to Cole, but her hand lingered on his chest. "Don't put on a shirt for about an hour. The herbs need a chance to sink in and work."

"Oh, is that why?" Cole said in a ribald tone, and they smiled at each other.

"What do you suppose is taking Paige so long?" Piper asked, giving Leo a quick kiss and beginning to put away the herbs. "It shouldn't be this hard to find a mere sorcerer."

"The Seer will keep him cloaked for as long as it suits her purposes," Cole said. "Which means it's going to take some really fancy magic to find him, or – "

Paige orbed into the kitchen. "Got 'im," she said.

"And you know what that means," Cole said.

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They did, but they went anyway. The Seer might possibly still be there.

She wasn't, but there was something else wrong in the pleasant little neighborhood park: the horrible stench of burned skin.

"Oh my God," Piper whispered. They separated a little from each other, looking. "What on Earth – "

"Fireball," Cole said.

"He said he had an amulet that would protect him against fire!" Phoebe said.

"Not strong enough. I saw something like it about 75 years ago. The amulet keeps the person from simply disappearing into a scorch mark, but doesn't keep him from burning."

Paige gave a choked cry and they rushed to the line of bushes where she stood.

The fireball had caught Stone in the stomach, and they looked away from that fast. His hands, feet, and face were seared, but whole enough that they could recognize him. And, unbelievably, he was still alive.

A thin thread of sound was coming from his throat. Phoebe wanted to assume it was just a death rattle, but his one good eye was fixed on her insistently, so she quelled her nausea and knelt beside him.

"Genius. Brain," Stone whispered, and died.

Phoebe stood and turned away, trying to breathe fresh air, trying not to run away.

"Seems like an odd time to get sarcastic," said Paige, trying to sound tough and failing.

"Maybe he meant himself," Cole said. "I'm such a genius brain, but I still didn't get that a demon would kill me rather than risk my helping the Charmed Ones."

Piper appeared to be wrestling with a bush. With some effort she broke off a fairly long twig and knelt by Stone's outstretched, clenched right hand. "It looks like there's something – "

"Do you think he told her – whatever it was?" Paige asked Cole.

"Sure. Or he'd still be alive. Who knows what she promised him in exchange. But this is what she delivered."

Piper was prying Stone's fist open as gently as it could be done. There was something there, a fragment of paper in his palm. The rest of it, of course, must have been burned to ash. With only a twitch at the corners of her eyes she pulled the piece of paper up and, as Phoebe turned back, read, "Demi."

"Demi?"

"D-E-M-I."

"What's on the other side?"

"A line."

"OK, demi," Paige said with some of her normal vigor. "Demi Moore. Deming, New Mexico. Dimension! No, that's D-I – "

"Epidemic," said Cole. "Pandemic. Demise."

"Endemic," said Piper. "Demitasse. DeMille."

"Academic," said Phoebe. "Oh, my God, that's it. Cole, remember what he said, back at his house? Dimensional portals exist, some right under people's noses – some right _over_ them. Just now he said 'Genius brain.' A genius' brain is a portal!"

There was a moment's silence; then Cole said, "I don't know, Phoebe," at the same moment that Paige began, "But what has that got to do with – "

"Wait," said Piper, "wait, wait. I've heard weirder things."

"Well, of course _you_ have – " Cole said.

"Geniuses, their brains, they make jumps. Connections," Piper said. "A normal person thinks, like, a, b, c, d, e. A really smart person thinks abcde. But a genius thinks a, red. I mean, I'm sure they work damn hard for their insights. But the fact remains, other people don't get them even with hard work. Somehow geniuses connect one thing to another without slogging through the intermediate steps for 10 years."

"Like a space warp," Paige said. "I mean, if those existed."

"Who knows, maybe they could. And maybe on some submicroscopic, subatomic, sub-something level, there's a dimensional portal in a genius' brain, and that's what makes him a genius."

"What has that got to do with 'academic'?" Paige asked Phoebe.

Phoebe pointed at the scrap of paper. "Stone went to the lecture I was supposed to go to tonight. 'Math, Space, and Time.' He brought the program in with him when Cole and I went to see him. It was presented by the San Francisco Academic Union."

"Who was the lecturer?" Piper asked.

"Dr. Charles Eppes. CalSci."

"Is he a genius?"

"Leonard says he's brilliant. I don't know if that means certified genius or not."

"Could be the genius is one of the people attending the lecture," Cole said.

"In any case, the Seer knows the consequences to the magical realm if mortals get positive proof of its existence," Piper said. "She won't make a move on anybody in a room full of people. That buys us some time."

Paige made a negative sound, looking at her watch. "It's 9:50. It's probably over by now."

"Maybe not," Phoebe said. "Stone said he left at the beginning of the question period. If that runs long – "

Piper had her cell phone open. It was answered on the first ring. "Leo, Google Dr. Charles Eppes of CalSci – spelling?"

"E-P-P-E-S," Phoebe said.

"E-P-P-E-S," Piper repeated. "Find out everything you can in two minutes. Paige will orb in to pick it up. The rest of us are going to the, what is it, Phoebe, the Amberleigh Hotel?"

Phoebe was frowning, but nodded.

"Paige will bring the information to us there. – Yeah, if you can get a picture, that'd be great. Thanks. See you soon."

"You're sure it's Eppes she'll be after?" Cole asked as Piper put the phone away.

"Heck, no. But the four of us can't protect an entire room full of people. Especially since probably half of them have already left."

"If Stone brought the program to show the Seer," Paige said, "it would make sense that he was specifically pointing out that speaker. Otherwise he could have just said, you know, go where a bunch of smart people are."

"OK." Piper took hold of Cole's arm. "Take us where a bunch of smart people are."

"Whoa," Phoebe said. "Cole can't wear a shirt yet, and my hair is still caked with blood. If we stroll into the lobby of the Amberleigh we'll be escorted right back out. Let's all go back to the Manor. You two pick up the information, get to the Amberleigh, and grab Eppes. Once he's at the Manor, we can all protect him."

"I'm dying to know how we're going to do this," Paige said.

"Me too," Piper admitted. "OK, Phoebe, sounds like a plan."

"What about – " Phoebe indicated the corpse. "When someone finds that here, it'll be weeks before anyone lets their kids play here again. And the police will be all tied up trying to find a murderer they'll never find."

Cole scrutinized the body more closely than the rest of them could bear to. "Looks like the amulet might have melted. Stand back."

He dropped a small fireball, and Professor Stone and his obsession were nothing more than a scorch mark on the grass.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paige and Piper orbed into the ladies' room of the Amberleigh hotel lobby. They had just taken time for Paige to snatch the information out of the printer and Piper to say "Thanks again," before they'd left. Paige's left hand held Piper's arm; the right held the two sheets of paper.

Piper looked out the door to make sure no one was just about to walk in. "OK, what about him?"

"He's the youngest," Paige said, her gaze running down the paper.

"The youngest what?"

"Name it. The youngest ever to publish a major mathematical paper by a single author. The youngest ever named to a professorship at CalSci. The youngest ever to win – a couple of different prizes. If the Seer's not after him, she's missing a bet."

"What does he look like?"

Paige showed her the picture. "Cute guy, bad hair day."

Piper nodded, and they went into the lobby.

The Amberleigh Hotel was elegant, large but not elephantine, and busy enough that there were quite a few people in the lobby at almost 10:00 at night – two desk clerks in dark suits, one of them checking in an Asian woman with a rolling attaché case and a laptop; a white-haired lady waiting for the elevator; a couple of businessmen talking in muted tones as they walked into the dark, wood-framed entrance to the bar; a plainclothes security type looking incredibly casual as he lounged on a sofa. Piper blessed her sister for being foresighted: all the wrong kinds of attention would have been attracted by shirtless Cole and bloody Phoebe. Although that would make a great title for a pirate movie, she thought.

Paige had found the board where the day's events were listed. "8:00, Academic Union, Barbary Room," she read.

It looked like the meeting rooms were down a hall off one side of the lobby, so the two got down there as fast as they could without outright running. The Barbary Room was at the head of the hallway. Piper and Paige stopped in the doorway.


	7. Professor Eppes

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if the networks didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

The talk must have ended just a short time ago: There were still people in pairs and small groups standing around in animated discussion. But hotel employees were already beginning to take away the chairs, and the dais and podium were empty.

"All right, walk around and see if he's any of these people, or if they know where he went," Piper said. "I'll go out front and see if he's trying to get a cab. We'll meet in the middle of the lobby."

When they did, their expressions were blank.

"Let's think about it," Piper said. "He could be staying with a friend in town. He could be staying here. He could be in the men's room. He could be – "

" – in the bar," Paige said, looking over Piper's shoulder.

Piper turned. The bar was dark, but a candle in an amber glass holder flickered in the middle of each table. The glow somewhat illumined the faces of everyone at a table by the wall, but it happened that Professor Charles Eppes was sitting with his back to the wall, and they saw him full face.

He was smiling at something that someone had just said, a smile that enhanced his youthful face and warm eyes. But his shoulders seemed pinched, as though, without realizing it, he were pulling a little away from everyone. He rubbed his eyes and drained the last of a glass of beer.

Piper sighed in relief. "Another five minutes, he'd have been gone. And once he's by himself – "

"Oh, if the idea is to make sure he's not alone all night – " Paige began.

Piper quelled her with a look, albeit an amused one. "OK, he's tired, he's been talking all night. What could possibly convince him to do anything but fall asleep at the first opportunity?"

Paige put on a pretty pout. "Hi, I'm a math groupie," she said with a little wave. "Wanna go back in the bar with all the nice people and buy me a drink?"

"Certainly, miss," Piper said. "And what field of mathematics most interests you?"

"Oh. Multiplication?"

Piper laughed, sobering fast when she saw that Eppes was on his feet and obviously saying his goodnights. "Think, think – "

He was walking out of the bar, and now he saw both women looking at him. Still sober, Piper greeted him. "Professor Eppes?"

"Yes?"

And finally, an idea. She lowered her voice and spoke in a monotone. "We're with hotel security. Could we speak to you for a moment?"

Eppes looked at her, amused. "Security?"

She couldn't blame him. She herself was wearing a snug-fitting sweater and blue jeans; Paige had chosen to fight demons decked out in a ruffled black skirt and low-cut black camisole that revealed the whiteness of her shoulders and décolletage. Not only did they not look like hotel security, they probably looked like the sort of women that hotel security gets paid to whisk out of the lobby.

Paige, however, came in on cue in an indignant undertone. "Oh, yeah, fortunately nobody's ever had that reaction before!"

"Obviously, Professor, the hotel calls us for special matters," Piper said. "We need to speak to you about a threat."

"What kind of threat?"

"We'd rather not discuss it here, sir. Once we're at the safe house, we can give you the details."

A blank expression settled on Eppes' face, although his eyes, moving back and forth between them, were quick. "The hotel has a safe house."

"Did you think you were our only prominent guest?" Paige asked.

"Easy," Piper said. "We're supposed to protect the guest, not alienate him. We apologize for the inconvenience, sir, but we are concerned about a real possibility of danger to you and we'd like to clear you out of here."

"Have the police been called?"

"Um, yes, they have been. They're aware of, they urged us to get you someplace safe." Piper took his arm and tried to start for the door. "Time is of the essence, sir, so – "

Eppes wasn't budging. He had planted his feet.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do." He spoke as quietly as they. "I'm going to assume this is a joke, and laugh. You're going to take your hand off me and laugh too. Then you're going to leave. That way there won't be any need for me to call that gentleman over there – " indicating the security guy in the lobby – "and ask if he recognizes you as members of the staff."

He laughed, an even quiet laugh. Piper, having no choice, dropped her hand and chuckled. Paige stole a glance at the security guy; he was watching them, but at least he wasn't coming over.

The elevator dinged, and a male tourist who'd been waiting for it started to get in. "Please hold the elevator," Eppes asked cheerfully, and walked rapidly away.

"Now what?" Piper said, still smiling.

A siren screamed by in the street outside, and the security guy looked out the tall glass panels of the hotel's façade. Paige grabbed Piper's hand and pulled her into the staircase next to the elevators.

"Now we orb up to the hall in front of the elevator on each floor until we see where he gets off," Paige said.

"What if there are people in the hall?"

"Then we skip that one and go to the next one up. If he's around other people, he's OK. If we get to the top of the building without seeing him, we'll figure out what to do next. Ready?"

They vanished in tiny spheres of glittering blue-white light.

Charlie Eppes was rattled, and felt stupid for feeling rattled. To be that shaken by a public encounter with two (apparently) unarmed women! Probably just a joke, which is why he'd given them that out. No, probably some scheme to get his wallet. But when, besides your day job, you also do consulting for the FBI and classified cryptography work for the NSA, and a pair of complete strangers tries to get you to go somewhere with them, you start remembering bad stories.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor. The tourist said, "Have a good night," and got off. Eppes pushed the Door Close button, scanning the hallway in front of the elevator until the doors moved smoothly in front of him.

When he got back to his room, he decided, he'd page his brother Don, who would call back immediately unless he was in the middle of a shoot-out, or something. Don was an FBI special agent, and in his investigative career had probably dealt with everything from drunken groupies to con artists to terrorist kidnappers. He'd ask Don whether he thought this required action, or just going to bed and forgetting it.

He was feeling better just at the thought of the call when the elevator doors opened on the 12th floor. He already had his key-card in his hand, and his room was just a few doors down from the elevator. As he opened the door he was trying to remember where he'd put his phone when he unpacked. Then he stopped dead without making a sound.

A woman was waiting for him in his room, and this one he recognized. Long red robe, single dangling earring, quite striking, even with the large bandage on her face. She'd slipped into the meeting room toward the end of the question period and had kept her eyes fixed on him every minute. He'd thought it was a little odd; if she was that fascinated in the subject, why come so late?

"Professor Eppes," she said now in a tone that just missed warmth. "It's so good to see you."

If he hadn't already been rattled, he'd have probably stayed in the doorway saying things like, "Who are you? Who let you in?" But something about her put his already jangled nerves on red alert, and he did what they demanded: He slammed the door and ran down the hall toward the staircase by the elevators.

Then something hit him in the back. It felt like a battering ram with an electric shock, and it lifted him off his feet, slamming him into the wall. He collapsed, gasping, trying to get his bearings. The woman in the red robe was standing in front of him, looking up and down the hall. Then she said to him reprovingly, "Please don't panic. I need your brain in full working order." She bent, reaching out a hand to him.

Then she exploded into what looked like a thousand hornets, swarming silently in a column behind which he saw the two women from the lobby.

"What was in that beer?" he demanded.

The one in the sexy black top knelt beside him, taking hold of his arm. The one wearing a small gold crucifix over a soft tan sweater knelt on the other side of the first woman, taking her arm.

"Sorry, Professor," said the one in black, sounding genuinely apologetic. "Really sorry."

Then things blurred. Then there was nothing. It wasn't like he was blind and numb, it was like he had no eyes or body at all. But he was conscious, and conscious of movement.

Then things blurred again, and now he was sitting on a sofa in a dim room with a fierce source of light. He looked toward it as the woman in black said, "Easy! Easy! It's us!"

She was talking to a tall man with black hair. He wasn't wearing a shirt, which revealed both his muscularity and the fact that he had war paint, or something, smeared on his chest and arm. He was holding a dagger in one hand and what looked like a ball of fire in the other.

"Don't scare him to death," the woman in black continued. "He doesn't even know we're the good guys yet."

The man closed his fist around the fireball, somehow extinguishing it without screaming in pain, and smiled down sardonically at Charlie. "Hi," he said. "We're the good guys."

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Paige volunteered to explain things to Eppes while the others talked over the next step. She figured that a genius would rather know all of the facts than an edited version calculated to reassure him, so she explained completely. She took him into the kitchen and got him a cup of chamomile tea first, leaning closely enough to him as she put it in front of him that he could catch of whiff of the perfume she had hastily refreshed on their arrival.

He listened silently throughout, stopping her only once. "If your sister – blew up – this – Seer, why is the rest of this – necessary?"

So Paige explained that the most powerful upper-level demons didn't stay blown up; that the whirling flecks he had seen would pull back together into the Seer, and probably had just seconds after they had left. He nodded with a strange smile, and didn't speak after that.

Meantime, there was first a debate and then agreement in the living room. The debate was about what to do with Eppes. Cole, who had never seen Magic School before he had been there that night, thought it was the perfect place to stash the innocent. Leo disagreed. As heavily cloaked and safe as Magic School was, its major protection was that it wasn't widely known, training kids quietly under the demonic radar. If it started becoming known as the Charmed Ones' safe house, demons would start focusing more on how to get at it, endangering the students.

Leo won, and everyone decided that Cole would make a round trip, shimmering Charlie and Leo to a sports bar that was popular and open until 2:00 a.m. The Seer would stay her hand as long as Charlie was among a lot of people; Charlie might feel a little more comfortable sitting in a normal setting with a non-magical guy; and there would be no need to tell him that Leo would be wearing a jacket concealing an athame and vials of potions that could disable and explode demons.

Then came the agreement. Phoebe had written a spell to summon the Seer while Piper and Paige had been at the Amberleigh. As soon as Cole got back from taking Charlie and Leo to the bar, they would summon the Seer, trap her in a crystal cage (they had plenty of crystals in the attic), and then use the spell Piper had written to send her back. If she disappeared without exploding or splitting in half or destroying the time-space continuum, they would promptly use the same spell to send Cole back.

Piper tried not to notice that throughout most of the discussion, Phoebe's hand was resting lightly on Cole's arm; nor that, when they discussed sending Cole back, he couldn't stop himself from looking at Phoebe and putting his hand on hers. Piper was also trying not to show how nervous she was at the possible consequences of opening a dimensional portal with her spell. Suddenly she stood.

"Sounds good," she said. "How about a few minutes' down time first? Clear our minds, do whatever we need to do to get ready. OK with everyone?"

"I'll get my jacket and the weapons," Leo said, heading for the hall.

"I'm just going to sit quietly for a few minutes," Phoebe said.

Cole didn't say anything, and didn't move from her side.


	8. An Additional Dimension

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if the networks didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

Piper nodded, once, and turned back into the kitchen.

Paige and Charlie were sitting at the little breakfast table with cups of tea, and even from the door Piper could tell that Charlie's cup was still full. Paige had a questioning look on her face, and Charlie looked like he hadn't heard the question.

"Paige?"

Paige crossed the room and Piper said quietly, "Cole's going to take Dr. Eppes and Leo to a bar, then we're going to summon the Seer and send her back."

"Sounds good."

"Would you – Phoebe already looked at the dimensional transport spell while we were gone, but if you could take a look, just see if there's something I might have – "

Paige patted her arm. "Honey, I'm sure it's great, but I'll take a look at it if it makes you feel better. Charlie, I'll see you later."

"It's up in my room. Thanks, Paige."

As Paige left, Piper walked over to Charlie and touched his teacup. As she had thought, stone cold. She emptied and refilled it, saying, as she put it in front of him, "You really should try to drink that. It's very calming. Not a potion," she added hastily. "Just chamomile tea."

He took a sip. "I'm just – I'm trying to figure out if this is the nullification of everything I know to be true. Or only part of it."

"Does it have to be one or the other? Can't it be – a supplement?" She smiled. "An additional dimension?"

He smiled back and took another sip. The remains of the soup she'd made for dinner were crusting the pot, and dishes and spoons were stacked on the counter. "I promise, the kitchen doesn't always look like this. I was going to clean up the dishes after I read my older son his bedtime story."

"Dishes?"

"Um. Things you put food on."

"Yes." Eppes almost laughed. "I mean, can't you just – " He waved his hands in the air.

Piper smiled, pouring herself the last of the coffee. "We don't use magic for personal gain. It has bad consequences."

"I have a hard time believing – Well, any of this – but especially I have a hard time believing that magic makes a moral judgment on how it's used."

"Why?" Piper asked, sitting at the table with him.

"Electricity doesn't. Gravitation doesn't. Solar radiation doesn't. If this – magic – makes any sense at all, it's only as a form of energy previously unsuspected except by believers in fairy tales."

"Oh, I think magic is more than just energy."

"Everything is energy. Even matter is energy."

"There's a spiritual aspect to magic too. Doesn't work without it."

Eppes gulped his tea and turned to her with animation; it was like having something to argue about was bringing him back to life. "Apparently this Seer is perfectly able to use magic with no moral compass at all."

"Oh, she's immoral, but don't think there's no spiritual aspect to what she does. Every time she casts a spell, every time she has a vision, she's drawing from a source of power greater than her own. She knows that, and she bows before it. In her own way."

"And you bow before the opposite? No magic would happen if it weren't for God vs. the Devil?"

"Well, my personal feeling is, not much of anything would happen if it weren't for God," Piper said. "And if there's a force that lives to corrupt or, or, usurp God's power, is that so hard to believe?"

"For the rational mind, yes. We know that the concepts of both a well-meaning divine omnipotence and an evil omnipotence spring from the need of people to put human reasoning behind events that are explainable as straightforward natural phenomena. The terror and the superstition both become unnecessary when you realize that it can all be reduced to mathematics."

"Hmm." Piper rested her chin on her hand. "I've heard that argument before – that anything people believe without seeing and hearing it is just the result of fear – and it always makes me wonder, who is it that's really afraid?"

"Seeing and hearing aren't necessary. Just some form of scientific proof. You can obtain scientific evidence of the existence of radio waves. You cannot obtain such evidence of the existence of God."

"Not yet; maybe never. But radio waves existed long before people could prove they did, and maybe God is the same – soaking though the universe, through all the universes, through matter and energy and whatever else there is, making it possible for us to do what we do. Well – and for that matter, for you to do what you do." Piper smiled. "And that, Professor, is a phenomenon I'm afraid you'll never be able to reduce to mathematics."

He seemed inclined to let her have the last word, tilting his head and taking a sip of his tea; then he glanced up at her with a grin and a glint in his eye. "Wanna bet?"

Coming back downstairs, wearing his jacket, Leo took a swing by the living room on his way to the kitchen. He had the feeling that he was going to have to break a major lip-lock between Phoebe and Cole, and on the one hand he was sorry to do it to her; on the other hand, Cole had to go back, and the more deeply Phoebe got involved, the more she'd be hurt. Besides, he himself wanted this to be over with before it got later and everyone got even more tired.

Prepared to say something gently interruptive, he stopped in the doorway, and was surprised. They weren't even on the couch together. Phoebe was standing, her body angled toward the door, but her gaze turned over her shoulder at Cole. He sat on the sofa, his arm extended; he had caught the tips of her fingers with one hand, and apparently that fragmentary clasp had stopped her dead in her tracks. They were both half-lit by the one lamp in the room; a change of clothes, Leo thought, and they'd have been an old Dutch painting.

Then Phoebe realized he was there and gently pulled her hand away from Cole. "We're coming."

Leo continued to the kitchen and looked in on Piper, sitting at the breakfast table with Eppes. "Piper? I think everyone's ready."

She nodded and said to Eppes, "You and Leo are going to hang out at a sports bar while we get rid of the Seer. After that, you'll be safe."

"A sports bar?" Charlie looked as if he'd been served a big slice of lemon with his tea.

Leo laughed. "It's not my usual milieu either. But it'll probably be good for both of us. Get us away from the academic stuff for awhile."

"If, um, Paige wanted to go someplace, I'd be willing to go there with her," Charlie volunteered.

Piper smiled. "We need all three of us to cast the spells we'll be casting. But if you're still in town tomorrow, I can encourage you to give Paige a call."

"All right." Charlie stood. "Mind if I use your bathroom again first?"

"Not at all. You know where it is."

Charlie left. Leo walked over to Piper and she stood for a long mutual embrace.

Leo looked her in the eye. "Hey."

"I know."

"When I became mortal, I gave up the ability to be in on the really dangerous stuff. I know that. But you know I'll be here with you."

"Yes, I do. Leo, we'll have the Power of Three here. You know what that means."

Leo held up one hand, his thumb and forefinger an eighth of an inch apart. "It means I worry that much less."

Charlie looked over Leo's and Piper's sink and counter for the soap. It was no easy task; every square inch of surface space was covered with Piper's cosmetics, Leo's shaving stuff, toothbrushes, children's shampoo, baby supplies. But he spotted the small dish to the left of the faucet and washed his hands, looking into the mirror. For a moment, after rinsing them, he leaned on the sink and stared.

"This is not the face of a credulous fantasist," he whispered.

The Seer's face in the mirror said, "No, Dr. Eppes, of course not."

Charlie started, banging his hand into a rack of Piper's eye makeup so hard that it bounced off the wall and fell into the sink. The Seer wasn't alone; she was kneeling behind a little girl in pink pajamas. And holding the point of a knife to her throat.

"I regret having to bring mortals into this," the Seer said, "but you know no one will ever believe what this child says. They'll tell her she had a bad dream. Or they'll search for a psychopathic killer. One way or the other."

Charlie opened the child-proofed mirrored medicine cabinet door and searched. Nothing in there but medicines and more baby stuff. He closed it; the Seer's image was still there. He looked around to see where an image might be projected from. He stopped and looked in the mirror again when he heard the little girl cry out.

The Seer had grabbed the back of her hair and pulled her head back, and now the edge of the blade was across the child's throat. "Don't try my patience, Professor, and don't call out. Do exactly what I say or I'll kill this mortal."

"Well, I uno dos tres quatro," Charlie said. "One four nine sixteen twenty-five. Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and -- "

"Tests? Must we? Very well. Cinco. Thirty-six. And I have no idea what those rather Greek-sounding words were, but your face tells me I have convinced you that I'm not a prerecorded message."

Charlie nodded.

"Don't say anything loudly. If you try anything clever you may help yourself, but you will kill her. Go to the window and drop out of it. It should take you no more than three seconds to cross the bathroom and five seconds to open the window and climb out."

"And then what?" Charlie was darn near whispering, but she seemed to understand him easily. "What if you kill her anyway and then cut my head off to get at my brain? Two deaths instead of just one? It makes no sense."

"Don't be ridiculous. The dimensional portal in your brain wouldn't work if your brain were non-functional. We're simply going to go conduct a small ritual which will take me back to my reality."

"Where? I'm not going to some – sulfur pit in Hell and be stranded there when you leave."

"Quite the opposite, Professor." The Seer smiled almost demurely. "We're going to church."

Charlie leaned both hands on the sink, shaking his head. He looked woozy. "This just isn't happening."

"Tell yourself that. It will make it easier to follow my instructions if you're sure none of it is real anyway."

"I have to think," he said, leaning his left hand and his head on the mirror, "I have to think."

"You've run out of time, Professor. When I reach ten, the child dies. One. Two. Three."

He moved back sharply from the mirror. "I'm coming."

The child-proofed window caught, giving him a moment's anxiety, but then he managed to get it open and clamber out, hanging from the sill. It was so dark that he couldn't see the ground just a story below, but he steeled himself and dropped anyway.

And felt again that sensation of blur and bodiless movement and blur again.

He blinked his eyes, looking up. He was sitting on the grass, outdoors somewhere. He couldn't see anything else.

Then five yellow streaks of light leaped from points all around him and met over his head. By that light he could see the Seer standing on the other side of the yellow streaks, still holding the child by the arm.

Charlie stood. "All right, I'm here. Let her go."

The Seer looked down as if she'd forgotten the little girl's existence. The child smiled up at her, and began growing. She changed shape as she grew, assuming the form of an adult man in dark clothes.

"Bravo," the Seer said, giving him gold coins. "A heart-touching performance."

The man grinned at her, looked over at Charlie and snickered, and vanished in the blink of an eye.

"You're new to this, Professor," the Seer said, "so there's no reason why you should have ever heard of a shape-shifting warlock. You don't need to feel stupid."

She turned to pick up something propped against a tree. Charlie tried to put an arm between the streaks of light and realized the reach of the cage's force field. The Seer turned back and stepped easily into the cage, carrying a long, heavy broadsword.


	9. Goodbye, Charlie

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if the networks didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

The handle of the bathroom door exploded, and Piper and Leo rushed in.

Phoebe walked in behind them, holding a key. "OK, I was going to suggest using this, but – "

"Not here," Piper said, as if that weren't obvious. "Damn! What did she do, shimmer in here without his making a sound, grab him and shimmer back out again?"

"Talk about your awkward positions," Cole couldn't resist saying.

Leo shook his head. "The window's open. Either he let her in or he let himself out."

"Why?" Phoebe asked.

Cole looked suddenly at the medicine cabinet door, still slightly ajar, then banged his fist against it. "That's why. She sent him an image in the mirror. And whatever it was, it was enough to make him do everything she wanted."

"And then some," said Paige.

She was pointing into the sink, where Piper's eye makeup lay, a jumble of pick-up sticks and discs. An eye pencil had been uncapped, and there were dusky green letters in the sink:

CHURCH

"Good man!" Cole said.

"She took him to wait for her crystals," Piper said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before they took off, Leo gave his weapons-laden jacket to Phoebe – he'd be staying at the Manor, where there was plenty of weaponry. He also, somewhat reluctantly, gave Cole his only other white shirt. Piper suggested that she and Paige orb, and that Phoebe and Cole shimmer, to opposite sides of the church and observe the back from there, to avoid crystal-cage traps, although they were pretty sure that they'd disrupted the Seer's crystal supply.

There was a flaw in the plan: a walled garden built out from the middle of the church's back kept them from seeing each other. But it didn't prevent either team from seeing the narrow, bright beam of light that speared into the sky over the garden wall.

Both teams got into the garden without delay. The first thing Paige saw was the Seer, standing in a yellow crystal cage, holding a broadsword that was so large she needed both hands and some muscular exertion to wield it. And then Paige saw what she was doing with it: the point was touched to Charlie's forehead. He was bound to the ground with glowing yellow bands of energy, and the laser-like shaft of light they had seen was coming from the point where the sword touched his head.

"Charlie!" Paige cried, unable to stop herself.

The Seer started very slightly, then looked at the four of them. "Don't startle me. And don't call for a crystal, Paige. I can have this sword through his throat before the cage is completely broken."

"But then your ticket out of here would be dead," Phoebe said.

"I can find another genius. But you girls usually place value on each innocent's life, don't you?"

She lifted the sword and Paige's hand shot forward, but the Seer didn't plunge it back down. She was tracing the line of light coming from Charlie's forehead with the point of the sword, then dragging it. The light magically bent as she traced a half arc in the air, from directly over Charlie's head to the ground on her right side, chanting, "Open this portal and give me passage, back to the universe where I belong. Open this portal and give me passage, back to the universe – "

Piper was trying to freeze or blow up the Seer, and Cole shook his head. "As long as someone good is in that cage, you can't affect what happens inside and he can't affect what happens out here."

Phoebe lay down to get more at eye level with Charlie. "Are you OK?"

"OK. Kind of – interesting." His voice was shaking, but by God he wasn't going to whine.

The Seer had completed her sword movement; the light from Charlie's forehead formed a half-arc to the right, and now the Seer began running the sword point back up along the light again. Phoebe, low to the ground behind her, reached for one of the crystals. It flashed and she jerked back her hand in pain.

"If that happens again I'll incinerate your innocent." The Seer was completing the arc of light, moving the sword's point over Charlie and down toward the left. "Open this portal and give me passage, back to the universe where I belong. Open this portal – "

"If she had crystals already, why did she come here?" Paige asked Piper.

"Last place anyone would look, remember?" Piper replied. "What I don't understand is, where did she get these crystals? And that sword?"

Phoebe stood back up beside her. "Stone's workshop. We should have thought of that."

"Well, we've been," said Paige, "a little busy. Wooa!"

That last was jerked out of her as the sword, completing the arc of bent light when it touched the ground, took on a life of its own. It rose out of the Seer's hands, about twenty feet in the air, dragging the arc of light with it. Then, faster than it takes to tell, it flipped in the air over the top of the cage, its point aimed directly at the ground, and the cage flashed with light so bright everyone had to turn their heads or close their eyes. The Seer stepped into the light, and vanished. Piper gasped and shot her hands up as the shuddering thud began.

The broadsword hung in the cage, pointed at Charlie's chest, about 12 feet above him, unmoving.

"How did you freeze it in the cage?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know," Piper said.

"She didn't," Cole said, squinting. "There's about two inches of the sword's hilt above the top of the cage. That's what she froze. A tenth of a second later – "

"OK," Paige said, "so now can I call for a crystal and break the cage?"

"No, don't!" Piper said. "It'll act like nudging someone when I freeze them. It'll break the freeze, and I'm not sure there'll be time for the cage to dissolve and for me to freeze the sword again before – "

"Probably not," Charlie said from the ground where he was still fettered. "The rate of acceleration – "

"Shut up, Professor, we're saving your life," Cole said.

Phoebe glanced at Cole. "Anyone who could help you get back, she really wants them dead."

"We have to do something fast," Piper said. "The Seer's magic is strong. My freeze is going to wear off pretty quickly, and by the time I see the sword moving, it'll all be inside the cage."

"Phoebe!" Cole said. "Levitate up there, grab that two inches of hilt and hang on for dear – "

She was shaking her head. "I can't levitate anymore."

"What? Why not?"

"Long dumb story. OK. We can't hold it, we can't freeze it, we can't throw a fireball at it, we can't explode it. What can we do?"

"Paige," Piper said. "That sword has to be putting some kind of infinitesimal break in the top surface of the cage. Do you think you could orb in through that, without pushing the sword itself?"

"Maybe. It'll be slower than usual. But then I could grab the blade, and – "

"No," Cole said, "you can't. See what the blade looks like? The Seer's athame looked the same when she put it into the cage where she trapped me. I tried to grab the blade; it hurt too much to hold. It would literally slip through your fingers."

Phoebe was dropping potion bottles out of the pockets of Leo's jacket. "OK. So we let the blade drop."

"EXCUSE ME?" from Charlie.

She tore the jacket off, and, holding one sleeve, extended it to her sisters. "Strength of Earth."

Paige and Piper grabbed the jacket. "Strength of Earth, tempered with Fire," they said in unison, and the jacket glowed. Phoebe tossed the sleeve she was holding to Paige. "Go."

It took almost no time for the tiny blue-white spheres of light that were Paige to reach the point where the sword intersected with the crystal cage. For a moment they hovered there; then the light began seeping into the cage, almost orb by orb, with agonizing slowness.

Piper stood unblinking, her arms in the air, trying to spot any sign of movement by the sword. Phoebe clutched Cole's arm. "Hurry – hurry – "

And now Paige was in the cage and now she fell beside Charlie, throwing the jacket over his chest and face, and now she heard a thump as the sword struck the jacket behind her head, caromed off and cut her arm before landing on the grass.

"Ow," said Charlie's voice under the jacket.

Paige pulled the jacket off his face. "Are you OK?"

Charlie was laughing raggedly. "Oh. Yeah. Yes."

Piper dropped her arms and fell to her knees, breathing heavily.

Paige rolled over, extended her right hand, and said, "Crystal." The nearest crystal leaped to her hand, and when the cage dissolved, so did Charlie's fetters. For a moment he and Paige lay side by side, utterly spent, looking like improbable lovers.

"Just once," Paige said, "I'd like to rescue an innocent with more than one second to spare. You know? Just a little more time?"

Charlie sat up, rubbing his bruised chest. "Question of perspective. In the life of a subatomic particle, a second is an eternity."

"In our lives too," Phoebe said, still holding on to Cole. "Sometimes, in our lives too."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No, it's not that I'm especially eager to," Charlie said. "But there's no question that I'd be dead now if it hadn't been for all of you, and I feel like I owe you – "

"I don't think you quite get the gist," Piper said, smiling at him. "We're the protectors of the innocent, not the experimenters on the brains of the innocent. We'll send Cole back in our own way."

"Speaking of brains," Paige said, "does yours – um – seem – "

" – still up to its previous level?" Charlie said with a grin. "As far as I can determine, yes. In fact, that expansion of the portal may have stimulated it. I had an insight back there about a flaw I've been grappling with related to my work in cognitive emergence theory." He shook his head. "I don't even begin to know how I'm going to account for the inclusion of an interdimensional portal in a minute percentage of the population."

"Maybe it would be better if you didn't," Piper said. "Paige did tell you, didn't she, that exposing the existence of magic and who we are could put us in real physical danger?"

"As opposed to the security of the lives you now lead? – Yes, she explained. And I understand. Although I think the first thing endangered would be my reputation for reasonably sound mental health."

Phoebe bounced into the kitchen, followed by Cole. She was determinedly chipper. "Got the crystals arranged, got the silver-bladed athame, got Cole's blood cleaned _off_ the silver-bladed athame, got the spell. All we need is the Power of Three."

"And you'll have that as soon as I orb Charlie to his hotel room," Paige said, taking Eppes' arm.

"Come right back," Piper said meaningfully.

"Yeah, yeah," and Charlie laughed as the two disappeared in a shower of light.

"So!" Piper said to Cole. "Are you sure the attic is the place to do this? We shouldn't send you back to the room you came from?"

"If you had seen the Seer transport me – well, someone – out of the sunroom, what would you be doing?"

"Scrying," said Phoebe.

"Looking through the book," said Piper.

Cole shrugged. "Attic!", and Piper nodded.

"Well, OK then!" Phoebe was still chipper. "Let's get started."

"Cole, you shimmer Phoebe on up," Leo said. "We earthbound folk will take the stairs."

Cole put his hands on Phoebe's shoulders, and the two disappeared.

"That's nice of you," Piper said, "giving them a moment alone. But I'm not sure Phoebe wants it. I think she's trying to pretend she doesn't care."

"But maybe she needs to acknowledge the depth of her emotions. Your powers are tied to your emotions, you know."

"Really?" Piper gasped. "Why didn't you ever mention that before?"

They both laughed, and Piper grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the stairs. "Come on, earthbound folk."

When they got to the attic, though, Phoebe wasn't acknowledging the depth of her emotions. She wasn't even looking at Cole. He was standing in the pentagram of quartz crystals, and she was completing a ritual. Walking around the outside of the pentagram, Phoebe was touching each crystal. "No cage, but transport. No cage, but transport."

The five white streaks of light, normally only activated by evil, leaped up over Cole's head. "Now," Phoebe said, "if anything goes wrong, you should be able to get out, or we should be able to get in. Can you?"

Cole stepped out of the cage, and Leo stepped in. Then they changed places again, and as they did so, Paige orbed in.

"Well!" she said, stealing a glance at Phoebe's face. "Looks like we're ready!"

Expressionless, Phoebe handed the spell and the athame to Piper, standing on Piper's right. Paige came around to her left. "We're going to do this a little differently than the Seer did it," Piper said. "We're going to say the whole spell first, then cut the portal."

"You're sure you've got the Seer's flesh?" Paige asked.

Cole pulled the small plastic bag out of the unburned pocket of his potion-burned coat. "What do you know. Third time you checked, third time I have it." He grinned at her.

"OK," Piper said. She put the point of the athame into the cage's "wall," and a burning light gleamed at its tip. The three witches read together:

"Athame in crystal light

Cut a portal on this night.

Send the one within its frame

Back to that world whence he came,

Leaving our world still the same,

Setting his and our worlds right."

Piper began moving the athame downward, and the line of light grew.

"Thank you. All," Cole said, looking at Phoebe. "For everything."

"Say hi to me for me," said Paige.

"Wait!" Phoebe cried.


	10. As It Should Be

_The television show "Charmed," including the characters of Piper Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Leo Wyatt, and Cole Turner, is copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc. The character of Dr. Charles Eppes is copyrighted by someone who owns the television show "Numb3rs," which I would know if the networks didn't mutilate the closing credits of television shows._

_Incidentally, quick thank-yous that I should have done much earlier to Robyn, who helped me get over a plotting hump that stymied me on this story for two years, and to Philip, my source for all things scientific; anything Charlie Eppes said that sounds intelligent is due to Phil, anything he said that sounds, uh, not, is due to me._

With a step Phoebe was in Cole's arms and they were kissing as passionately as lovers ever kissed who were trying to forget everything around them.

Piper held the athame still, exchanging a look with Leo. Paige looked at the floor, her pale skin suddenly tinged pink around her eyes.

Cole broke it first, putting Phoebe gently outside the cage, but holding on to her arms and looking in her eyes.

"We'll find a way," he said, and Phoebe knew he was speaking to the Phoebe who could no longer comprehend him. "We'll never give up. We'll find a way."

He released her. They each took a step back. Piper knelt to finish drawing the line of light. She touched the athame to a crystal; the cage flashed, and Cole was gone.

Piper looked up. "No boom. Did I do something wrong?"

Leo was smiling. "No. The tremor meant a cosmic disruption. No tremor means everything is as it should be."

He glanced at Phoebe. "That is – "

Phoebe nodded. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. "You're right. Everything is as it should be."

"What did he mean, 'We'll find a way'?" Paige asked.

Phoebe cleared her throat. "Something in his reality. I'll tell you all later."

Leo helped Piper up and bent to begin picking up the crystals. Then he straightened and said, "Rats."

"What's wrong?"

"He's still wearing my shirt."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exhausted, Piper leaned her elbows on the Book of Shadows and closed her eyes. "Paige, you really need to go to bed."

Paige was dangling a crystal point over a book of maps. The table beside her was littered with potion ingredients, a cauldron, and spells hand-written on scraps of paper. "OK. I'm just going to try Southern California one more time. I've figured out a way to account for the false reading we always get from that stupid Hellmouth near Los Angeles."

"Looking for somebody?"

They both looked up and exclaimed, "Cole!" Paige continued, "Where have you been? I must have scried wrong somehow. What happened to – "

"Wait, wait," Piper said. "What's Phoebe's favorite color?"

"Now? Or – before? Before, she switched favorite colors almost monthly. Now, it's sky blue."

Piper sighed and closed the book. "Welcome back."

"What happened to your coat?" Paige asked. "Your throat is bandaged!"

"Your head is bandaged," he retorted.

"Major laceration, minor concussion," Piper said. "The emergency room doctor told her to go to bed and rest. So of course she immediately came up here and started scrying through the world atlas. What happened?"

"I'll tell you all about it, but first," he produced the plastic bag, "you might want to refrigerate this."

Piper went to him for a closer look and made a disgusted sound. "Eeu. For what, a snack?"

"For a potion. This is a piece of the Seer's flesh."

There was a moment of nearly awe-struck silence. Paige went over to look at the bag.

"All right," Piper said, "now I _really_ want to know – "

A hoarse screech ending in a drawn-out wail sounded clearly from the bedrooms below. Looking at the sisters, Cole saw, yet again, the expressions worn into their faces during the three years of the ordeal: Piper trying, trying not to be irritated or angry, to be unendingly sympathetic; Paige, her shoulders rounded, looking as if the cry had canceled anything good that she could ever do.

"She's had a bad night," Piper said. "She saw the Seer, and she saw you vanish. Leo stayed with her while I took Paige to the hospital, and he managed to reassure her a little, but – "

A sharp cry this time. Paige flinched physically.

"I'll go on down to her," Cole said, "but I need to tell you something first. We get so worn down around here, I think sometimes you forget that you're the best damn witches in – well, in this reality. In more than a hundred years, I've never known better. When I tell you what happened tonight, it'll remind you. There's nothing you can't accomplish when you set your minds to it, and I'm including Phoebe in that. We're going to vanquish the Seer. Then we're going to heal Phoebe. I know it."

"What – " Piper began.

"I'll tell you later. I have to go to Phoebe."

Paige took the bag from him. "And I have to get started on the vanquishing potion." She held a hand to the back of her head as if it hurt, but moved briskly toward the door.

"Miss Paige, the doctor s – Oh, forget it." Piper followed her.

Cole shimmered into the bedroom he and Phoebe shared. She had levitated to an upper corner of the room, her back pressed against the wall, her eyes wide, and she was screaming again as he appeared. When she saw him, the scream choked off.

"I'm here, Phoebe," he said gently.

"Are you a dream? Am I dreaming?"

"No." He smiled. "Come on down and I'll pinch you so you know."

She came down, but remained pressed into the corner. "Move away from that wall. The one with the knife is in the wall. He tried to stick me with it."

Cole looked. "I can't see him, Phoebe."

She gave a long-drawn, shaking sigh. "One of the Invisibles."

"You know how we vanquish those."

"Invisible weapons. I tried, Cole, I concentrated, but it was so dark and the knife was shining – "

"Ssh." He sat down on her bed. "I know you did the best you could. It's been a scary night. We'll vanquish him together. Ready?"

To his surprise she sat beside him, pressing her back to his chest as if he were another stabilizing wall. He put his outstretched hand before her face, palm up, as if holding a fireball. She blew across his palm shakily, and he rolled his hand over and extended his fingers at the wall as one rolling dice in slow motion. "Gone."

Another surprise: she held on to his arm, resting her head next to his, still looking at the wall. "I do see them, you know, I do see them."

"I know."

"I saw – her, I saw her, and you vanished."

"I had no choice. But I'm back now."

Her head turned slightly; she was looking at his bandaged throat. "They hurt you too."

"Not very much."

"Maybe – maybe – "

She turned slightly to face him, blurting it out with every ounce of courage she had. "Maybe if you went away, they wouldn't hurt you anymore. I know they're only after me. You wouldn't have to fight them for me and you could find someone who – who – "

"Don't even say it. Don't. I love you and there's nowhere else in the universe, in any universe, I'd rather be than here with you." He put his arms around her, and for once his touch stilled her shaking instead of starting it. "I'm staying right here. I'm staying right here."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Piper lay luxuriantly across the sofa in the living room, her eyes closed, her head in Leo's lap as he stroked her hair. Paige sat in a nearby armchair, a cup of tea on the end table beside her, her eyelids drooping.

"I'm still a little insulted," Piper said, not actually sounding insulted at all.

"Piper, Chris can't even talk yet, and he didn't wake up when you put him in his crib." Leo's chest expanded visibly. "It just so happens that Wyatt woke up enough to say 'I love you, Daddy' when I put him in his bed."

Piper smiled.

"Oh, and the elf from Magic School Security is at the Amberleigh Hotel, fritzing up the tapes of the security cameras starting about a half-hour before you arrived."

"This late? Poor guy."

Leo chuckled. "He loves field work."

"That leaves only one loose end, secrecy-wise. Should we dose Dr. Eppes with memory dust, Paige? He'd just think the beer made him so sleepy that he didn't remember going to bed. Or bruising his chest."

"Hm?"

"OK, beddy-bye."

"No, really, I'm awake. What were you saying?"

"Memory dust for the good doctor?"

Paige took a sip of tea. "I don't think so. I have the feeling, I'm not sure why, that he's someone who can keep a secret."

Piper raised her head and opened one eye under one arched eyebrow to look at Paige. "You just don't want him to forget you." But then she relaxed her neck and dropped the subject.

Phoebe walked past from the kitchen, carrying a glass of warm milk. "Goodnight, all."

"Phoebe?" Piper sat up. "Do you need to talk?"

"No. Really, I'm fine. I know now how close Cole came to turning it around. I wish he'd had just that little extra bit of strength. But if he had – "

She looked at Paige, who even half asleep had an air of self-confidence, and at Piper and Leo, so relaxed, and felt the warmth of the glass in her hand, the only sedative she herself would need to get to sleep that night –

"Well, you never know, do you?" she said almost to herself. "Anyway, we know that somewhere, there's a Cole who did turn it around, and he's a good man. And she needs him more than I do."

"Who does?"

"The other Phoebe. Like I said, I'll tell you tomorrow. I just want to be alone for tonight. Sweet dreams."

"Goodnight, Phoebe." Piper watched Phoebe walk down the hall as she said, "And you should probably hit the sack too, Paige, before you fall asleep in that chair."

"Too late," Leo said.

Paige was sitting bolt upright, her head over on one side, eyes closed, breathing deep and even.

"It's pretty amazing," Leo said.

"Uh – which part?"

He indicated the old mantel clock. "You brought Cole and the boys to Magic School a little after 7:30. You've found out about an alternate reality, vanquished two demons, fought the Seer, saved an innocent's life, and sent Cole back to his own reality in something over three and a half hours."

"Heck, that's nothing. To a subatomic particle, a second is an eternity."

"Is that so?" he said, like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever heard.

She giggled. "According to Dr. Eppes."

Leo gathered her up, and her arms slid around his neck. "What does he know?" he said, just before he kissed her. "To a pair of soulmates, eternity is only a second."


End file.
